Chapter 7 - The Jailhouse Visit
Z
The Wake County Detention Center smelled of commercial disinfectant, cold steel, and despair. I sat behind a scratched pane of thick plexiglass in the non-contact visitation room, waiting as the heavy metal door on the other side buzzed open.
Nathan walked in wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that hung loosely on his frame. In just four days, the polished, charismatic corporate executive had vanished. His hair was unwashed, dark purple rings circled his eyes, and his hands trembled as he picked up the gray plastic telephone receiver on his side of the partition.
I picked up my receiver, holding it to my ear in silence.
"Elena," Nathan choked out, his voice cracking against the glass. He pressed his free hand against the partition, but I kept my hands folded in my lap. "Thank God you came. You have to help me get out of here. The guards... the other inmates... they know what Mom and I were charged with. They think I'm a predator. I can't survive in this place."
"You shouldn't have put cameras in your relatives' bathrooms, Nathan," I said, my tone flat, stripped of all warmth.
"I didn't want to!" he sobbed, real tears rolling down his cheeks now. "Mom had dirt on me too, Elena! You don't understand how she operates! When I was in college, I got into serious debt with some dangerous people in Charlotte. Mom paid them off, but she kept the promissory notes and surveillance footage of the drop. She controlled my trust fund, my job at the firm, my inheritance... everything! If I didn't help her get your father's lake house to cover the development company's debt, she was going to cut me off and release the footage to ruin my career!"
I listened to him unload his desperate, pathetic excuses. For years, I had thought Nathan was simply a dutiful, somewhat spineless son who struggled to set boundaries with an overbearing mother. Now, I saw the truth clearly: they were two parasites feeding off one another, locked in a toxic cycle of greed and blackmail until they turned their sights on me.
"You had a choice, Nathan," I told him. "You could have come to me. You could have told me the truth. We could have faced Diane together. Instead, you chose to help her install a lens behind our bathroom vent. You watched me cry over negative pregnancy tests while plotting to use my medical treatments to brand me a drug addict."
Nathan lowered his head against the glass, his shoulders shaking violently. "I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry, Elena. If you bail me out, I'll sign everything over. I'll leave the state. You'll never see me again."
"I can't bail you out even if I wanted to, Nathan," I said. "The federal judge denied your bail hearing an hour ago. You're considered a flight risk because of the offshore accounts Diane maintained in the Caymans."
Nathan’s head snapped up, pure terror flashing in his eyes. "What? No! Sterling said I would get house arrest!"
"Sterling is resigning as your lead counsel this afternoon," I continued smoothly. "Your retainers bounced because the Department of Justice froze all Mercer accounts. You're being assigned a federal public defender."
Nathan dropped the phone receiver. It dangled against the metal wall, swinging like a pendulum, broadcasting his frantic, muffled screams through the small speaker: "Elena! Don't leave me here! Elena!"
I stood up, smoothed down my wool coat, and turned toward the exit. Through the observation window at the end of the hall, I caught a glimpse of Diane being escorted in handcuffs toward an interrogation room down the corridor. Her silver hair was wild, her silk dress replaced by the same humiliating orange uniform, shouting profanities at the guards who held her arms.
She saw me through the security glass. For one brief, burning second, our eyes locked.
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Diane looked at me with pure, unadulterated hatred—the rage of a spider watching its own web collapse around it.
I didn't glare back. I didn't smile. I simply gave her a polite, dismissive nod, turned my back on the Mercer family, and walked out into the bright afternoon sun.
