Chapter 5 - The Deposition
Z
The room on the forty-second floor of the Cook County Courthouse was sterile, brightly lit by fluorescent tubes, and smelled of stale coffee and floor wax. A court reporter sat at the end of a long conference table, her fingers poised over her stenography machine.
Sitting across from me was my father, accompanied by a public defender. He couldn't afford his high-priced corporate defense attorney anymore; his firm’s accounts had been frozen by the state liquidator two days after the gala disaster.
"State your name for the record," the Assistant State Attorney, a sharp woman named Elena Rostova, instructed.
"Richard Arthur Lawson," my father said softly. His voice lacked the booming timbre that used to fill our home with fear and obedience. He wore an ill-fitting suit, his hair unwashed, his posture slouched.
"Mr. Lawson," Elena said, pulling up a stack of financial logs. "We have reviewed the forensic audit provided by Sterling & Croft regarding the accounts of Lawson Real Estate Holdings LLC. Is it true that on October 14th, you transferred forty thousand dollars from a fraudulent loan secured using your daughter Emily’s personal identifying information directly into the personal account of your elder daughter, Vanessa Lawson?"
My eyes widened. I looked at David Vance, who sat beside me. That was a detail we hadn't uncovered yet.
My father swallowed hard, looking down at his clasped hands. "It... it was for her mortgage down payment. Julian’s parents required them to put down twenty percent on their townhouse in Lincoln Park to prove financial stability."
"So Vanessa knew," I blurted out, breaking the formal protocol of the deposition.
"Emily, please," her lawyer cautioned, but Elena Rostova nodded, allowing the thread to continue.
"Mr. Lawson," Elena pressed, "Did Vanessa Lawson know that the money transferred to her account originated from a line of credit fraudulently obtained in Emily Lawson’s name?"
My father hesitated. His eyes flickered toward me for a brief second—a desperate, pleading look of a father asking his victim for mercy. "She... she knew we were getting a loan. She didn't ask details."
"Did she see the invoice sent to Emily?" Elena demanded.
"She... she helped me draft it," my father confessed, his voice barely above a whisper.
The air in the room seemed to vanish.
I stared at him, feeling a cold numbness spread from my toes up to my chest. "Vanessa wrote the invoice?"
My father didn't answer. He couldn't look at me.
"Answer the question, Mr. Lawson," Elena commanded.
"Yes," Dad mumbled. "Vanessa said... she said Emily had always been stingy with her money. She said Emily had seventy thousand saved in her money market account that she wasn't using because she was planning a 'cheap court wedding.' Vanessa said... she said it wasn't fair that Emily kept her money while Vanessa’s reputation was on the line."
I leaned back in my chair, a sudden laugh escaping my lips—a laugh completely devoid of joy.
All those years, I had thought Vanessa was just spoiled. I thought she was self-centered, a victim of our parents' obsessive favoritism. But she wasn't just a passive recipient of their indulgence. She was the architect of my exploitation. She looked at my life, my hard-earned savings, my quiet happiness with Caleb, and decided that it belonged to her simply because she wanted a bigger party.
"Thank you, Mr. Lawson," Elena Rostova said, signing a blue legal document in front of her. "That completes the preliminary evidentiary deposition. Based on this testimony, the State of Illinois will be expanding the indictment to include charges of grand larceny and criminal conspiracy, naming Vanessa Lawson as a co-defendant."
My father snapped his head up, panic returning to his bloodshot eyes. "No! Not Vanessa! She has a life! She’s married! Take me, punish me! Don't ruin Vanessa!"
"You ruined her yourself, Richard," David Vance said sternly, closing his briefcase with two sharp clicks. "When you taught her that other people’s lives exist only to be consumed for her vanity."
I stood up, adjusting my jacket. I looked at the man who had given me life, who had sat at my dinner table six months ago and smiled while offering to "support" my wedding, all the while plotting with my sister to steal my life savings.
"Goodbye, Dad," I said gently.
May you like
"Emily, wait! Emily, please! She's your sister!" he screamed as the bailiffs stepped forward to escort him back to the holding cell. "She's your blood!"
I walked out of the room without looking back. Blood had demanded seventy-three thousand dollars. Freedom, as it turned out, was priceless.
