Chapter 7 - The Interrogations
The federal detention facility in SeaTac smelled of floor wax and stale lunch meat. It was a bleak, functional place where the rich looked exactly like the poor once they were stripped of their watches and their tailored wool coats.
Nathan sat behind the plexiglass partition, wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that made his skin look yellow and sickly under the harsh fluorescent tubes. His hair was greasy, uncombed, and his hands were shaking as he picked up the gray plastic telephone receiver.
I sat opposite him, holding the receiver to my ear, my face completely expressionless.
"Audrey," he begged, his voice cracking, his face pressed close to the glass. "You have to get me out of here. The lawyers say the federal prosecutor is looking at twenty years for the wire fraud alone. They’re talking about an attempted murder charge if Victoria signs the cooperation agreement."
"Victoria already signed it, Nathan," I said, my voice coming through the wire cold and clear. "She signed everything yesterday afternoon. She handed over the text messages from the night of the eighth forty-five tea. The ones where you told her that I had taken the drink and you were just waiting for the sedative to take full effect before you 'assisted' me down the stairs."
Nathan dropped his head against the glass with a dull thud. "She lied... she’s the one who gave me the bottle, Audrey! She said it was an unlisted derivative from a clinic in Mexico. She said it wouldn't show up in a standard toxicology screen if they didn't look for it within six hours."
"It doesn't matter who gave you the bottle, Nathan," I said. "Your fingers were on the eyedropper. Your signature was on the Shellbourne wire transfers. You spent five years believing that I was just the quiet, grateful girl who stayed in the kitchen because my body wouldn't give you a child. You forgot that I was the one who bought your first three cargo ships."
"Audrey, please..." he wept, his tears leaving long, wet streaks against the grease on the plexiglass. "We can fix this. I’ll give up the company. I’ll sign a total waiver of the marital assets. Just call the prosecutor. Tell them you don't want to pursue the domestic charges. For the sake of our marriage... for eight years we were happy, Audrey. Remember the summer in Cabo? Remember the house we were going to build in Maui?"
I looked at him—the man I had saved, the man I had loved, the man who had stood at the top of my grand staircase with kitchen shears and a bottle of poison in his thoughts.
"The marriage ended when you walked into my bedroom with Dr. Latham’s evaluation forms, Nathan," I said. "And the house in Bellevue is being sold on Monday. I’ve already bought a new place. In a town where the rain doesn't sound like a warning."
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I set the receiver down on the cradle. He kept screaming through the glass, his orange sleeve banging against the partition until two guards moved in from the back door, grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him back into the dark hallway.
I didn't watch him go. I stood up, walked out into the cold Seattle gray, and felt the first true breath of winter enter my lungs without a single ounce of weight behind it.
