"Silence!" Judge Mercer shouted, bringing her gavel down hard. "Ms. Vance-Sterling, take your seat! Counsel, approach the bench!"
As the attorneys rushed to the bench for a heated sidebar, Richard slumped forward in his chair, his head resting in his trembling, cuffed hands. Tears began to trace clean lines through the grime on his pale face. He was forty-eight years old, his career was in ashes, his prestige destroyed, and the men who had orchestrated his rise were leaving him to rot in a federal prison.
Ten minutes later, Judge Mercer receded from the sidebar.
"In light of the unresolved origin of the proposed bail collateral and the gravity of the underlying financial charges," Judge Mercer ruled, her voice cold and definitive, "the defendant’s application for bail is DENIED. The defendant is remanded to the custody of the United States Marshals Service pending trial."
"Your Honor!" Gregory pleaded, but the bailiffs were already hauling Richard to his feet.
As the officers began leading Richard toward the side door that led to the holding cells, Camille stepped out into the center aisle.
"Richard," she called out cleanly.
The guards paused. Richard looked up, his eyes wild with terror.
"You have twenty minutes before the transport bus leaves for Metropolitan Detention Center," Camille said, her mirrored sunglasses reflecting the harsh courtroom lights. "I have reserved Conference Room B in the holding facility. Federal prosecutors will be present. You can spend the next thirty years in a maximum-security federal facility protecting Julian and Apex... or you can sing."
Richard swallowed hard, a ragged sob escaping his throat. He looked at his high-priced lawyer, who was frantically gesturing for him to stay silent, and then back at Camille—standing before him like an absolute, unrelenting deity of justice.
"I... I want to talk," Richard choked out. "I want to talk to the U.S. Attorney. Right now."
Fifteen minutes later, deep within the fluorescent-lit concrete basement of the courthouse holding facility, Camille sat at a plain metal table in Conference Room B. Beside her sat the Lead Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chloe Bennett, who had her tablet open and ready.
Richard sat opposite them, his handcuffs clinking against the steel table. The slick corporate executive was completely gone; in his place was a broken, frightened man willing to burn down the universe to save himself.
"It wasn't my idea," Richard began, his voice a frantic whisper, his eyes darting around the room. "I swear to God, Camille, it wasn't my idea! Three months ago, Julian came to my office. He showed me the medical reports for Arthur. He said your grandfather had less than six months to live—that his cognitive decline was advanced."
"My grandfather is entirely sound of mind," Camille noted coldly.
"I know that now!" Richard cried. "Julian lied! He brought in a doctor from Mount Sinai—a private specialist named Dr. Robert Chen—who signed off on the medical proxy paperwork. Julian paid Chen two hundred thousand dollars to certify that Arthur was incapable of executing corporate decisions!"
Chloe made a rapid note on her tablet. "Dr. Robert Chen," she repeated quietly.
"Go on," the prosecutor commanded.
"Once they had the medical proxy," Richard continued, the words tumbling out of him in a desperate torrent, "Marcus used the signature matrix from the Greenwich house to authorize the derivative positions with Apex Capital. Victor Kael offered us a ten percent equity carried interest in Apex’s European holding company once the Toulouse plant was foreclosed and stripped! The payroll freeze... I had to do it! Apex demanded four point two million dollars in immediate cash margin last Friday, or they were going to expose the illegal proxy before the asset transfer was finalized. I didn't want the workers to suffer! I was going to replace the funds as soon as the European payout cleared!"
"You stole insulin money from hourly shift workers in Newark to pay off a short-seller syndicate," Camille stated, her voice dropping into a register of icy, absolute contempt. "Do not pretend you have a conscience, Richard."
Richard buried his face in his hands, weeping openly. "I gave them everything... I gave Julian the master administrative passwords to the offshore treasury routes last night. He told me he was going to use them to transfer the bond money for my bail!"
Camille leaned forward across the metal table, her square sunglasses inches from Richard’s trembling frame.
"Where is the master original of the forged proxy document, Richard?" she demanded softly. "The paper document with the physical notary stamp."
Richard looked up, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Julian keeps it... he keeps it in the private wall safe behind the oil painting in his personal study at the Vance-Sterling Tower. But you'll never get into it. It’s a dual-custody mechanical safe with a sixty-second self-destruct thermite liner if the code is entered incorrectly."
Camille slowly stood up, smoothing the tailored lines of her midnight-navy blazer.
"He doesn't need to enter the code incorrectly," Camille said, turning toward the door. "Because by five o'clock today, Julian Sterling-Hayes won't even have a key to the front door."