Chapter 5 - The Cellblock Confession
Z
The visitation room at the Cook County Department of Corrections was separated by a thick pane of scratched, smudged plexiglass. Richard Montgomery sat on the steel stool opposite me, wearing an orange jumpsuit that hung loosely on his shoulders. The arrogance that had defined him for decades had begun to fray at the edges, replaced by the hollow, gray pallor of confinement.
He picked up the heavy black receiver. I did the same.
"You look proud of yourself," he said, his voice flat through the static-filled line. "Turning your own flesh and blood over to the state. I suppose they’re patting you on the back at your firm."
"The firm made me junior partner yesterday morning," I replied, staring directly into his sunken eyes. "They don't tolerate criminals, Dad. But they do appreciate attorneys who can dismantle a multi-layered financial fraud in under seventy-two hours."
He sneered, tapping his yellowed fingernails against the glass. "You think you’re so smart, Claire. You think you’ve figured it all out. You always were the rigid one. Never understood how the real world works. Business isn't about following every little bureaucratic line. It’s about momentum. It’s about maintaining leverage until the next deal closes."
"You weren't doing business," I said. "You were stealing from your mother and your daughters. You gambled Evelyn’s life work on bad real estate and biotech penny stocks, and when the margin calls came, you forged our names to save your own skin."
"Your grandmother was a senile old fool who didn't understand the market," he barked, his voice rising enough that the guard by the door shifted his stance. "She locked up six million dollars in conservative municipal bonds earning three percent while the entire market was exploding. I was trying to grow it! I was trying to build an empire for you and Madison!"
"Is that why you put Madison’s name on a defaulted nine-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage?" I asked. "To build an empire for her? You used her as an umbrella so you wouldn't get soaked when the storm hit."
Richard looked away, his jaw working silently. For a second, a flicker of shame crossed his face, but it was quickly swallowed by his habitual vanity.
"Madison was weak," he muttered. "She was marrying Derek Sterling. The Sterlings have eighty million in logistics assets. Do you think Derek’s father would have let his son’s bride go down for a million-dollar technicality? He would have written a check to clear the debt without blinking. It was a calculated risk. It was a bridge loan until the wedding."
The sheer depravity of his logic took my breath away. He hadn't just used his daughters—he had weaponized Madison’s marriage before it even started, planning to blackmail her future in-laws into paying off his fraudulent debts to avoid a public scandal.
"Derek broke the engagement on Sunday night," I said coldly. "He took the ring, canceled the venue deposits, and his father’s legal team filed an injunction to bar you from contacting their family ever again."
Richard’s face tightened. "Derek is a coward."
"No," I replied. "Derek is an opportunist who realized your family is radioactive. And now you have nothing. The state’s attorney is offering eight years at Stateville if you plead guilty to all four counts of wire fraud and grand larceny. If you take it to trial, Sarah and I will ensure you serve fifteen."
He lunged forward, slamming his palms against the glass. "You wouldn't dare! I am your father!"
May you like
"My father died the second that cake stand hit my head," I said, rising from the metal chair. "The man sitting in front of me is just another defendant who couldn't balance his books."
I hung up the receiver and walked toward the exit door, ignoring his muffled screams as the guards forced him back onto his stool.
