Chapter 6 - The Fall of Vanessa
With the hard-money syndicate crushed by federal authorities, the state prosecution team turned its full attention toward Vanessa Reed.
Unlike my mother, who was broken and full of remorse, Vanessa remained defiant, believing that her youth, charm, and beauty would somehow save her from real consequences.
Two weeks after the deposition, Vanessa attempted to leave the state.
She bought a one-way bus ticket to Miami under a fake name, carrying a single small suitcase containing three stolen designer watches she had managed to hide from the moving crew inside her coat lining.
As she stepped toward the boarding gate at the central bus terminal, two female state troopers stepped into her path.
“Vanessa Reed?” the lead trooper asked, pulling out a warrant.
Vanessa backed up, her eyes wide with panic. “No! You have the wrong person! My name is Ashley!”
“Save it, Miss Reed,” the officer said, grabbing her wrist and spinning her around. “You have an active felony warrant for Grand Identity Theft, Wire Fraud, and Attempted Fleeing to Avoid Prosecution.”
Click-clack.
The steel handcuffs locked around Vanessa’s wrists in front of dozens of traveling passengers.
Her small suitcase was opened on a bench right there in the terminal. The two state troopers pulled out the three stolen watches—including my grandmother’s vintage platinum Omega watch worth forty thousand dollars.
“Add Possession of Stolen Property to the booking sheet,” the lead trooper ordered.
As Vanessa was escorted out of the terminal toward the waiting police cruiser, a local news camera crew—tipped off by Arthur Vance’s legal publicist—was waiting at the curb.
The blinding lights of the news cameras flashed in her face as a reporter held out a microphone:
“Vanessa Reed! Is it true you stole nearly a million dollars from your step-sister while living in her Oakridge estate? Do you have anything to say to the public?”
Vanessa covered her face with her cuffed hands, crying hysterically as she was shoved into the back of the police car, the high-definition cameras capturing every single second of her humiliation for the six o’clock evening news.
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Sat in my quiet hotel room, watching the live news broadcast on television, I took a calm, measured sip of tea.
The girl who had stood in my kitchen wearing my silk robe, sipping my wine, and laughing while scalding soup burned my face was now sitting in an orange jumpsuit in a county holding cell, waiting for her bail hearing—a bail set at $500,000 cash, which neither she nor Diane could ever hope to raise.
