Chapter 12 - The Desperate Midnight Plea
Three weeks before the final trial date, Diane Keller made one last, pathetic attempt to escape her fate.
Out on strict electronic monitoring at a rundown rental apartment in South Raleigh, having exhausted every dollar of her remaining savings on legal retainers, Diane took an illegal taxi to the gates of Oakmont Lane in the middle of a torrential thunderstorm.
At 11:00 PM, the gate intercom buzzed frantically.
I walked to the security monitor in the kitchen. On the high-definition infrared screen, Diane stood in the pouring rain, soaked to the bone, her hair plastered against her skull, banging her fists against the iron bars.
I stepped onto the front porch, protected by the wide awning, and pressed the intercom speaker.
“Diane,” I said, my voice echoing through the gate speakers. “You are currently violating a federal restraining order. The Raleigh Police Department and your federal probation officer have already been notified by automated GPS alert. You have five minutes before you are arrested.”
“Natalie! Please! Open the gate!” Diane cried through the speaker, her voice cracking with hysterical panic. “You have to drop the federal charges! Grant is dying in that holding facility! He’s lost thirty pounds! They’re going to send him to a federal penitentiary in West Virginia!”
“Grant committed federal crimes, Diane,” I replied coldly. “He made his bed. Now he has to sleep in it.”
“I am an old woman!” Diane wailed, falling to her knees in the mud outside the iron fence. “I have nothing left! The bank seized my car, the club expelled me, all my friends have blocked my calls! If I go to prison, I will die there! Have you no mercy? Have you no Christian forgiveness?”
I looked at the woman who, just months ago, had strutted across a military ballroom in a sequined gown, smiling with sadistic delight as she tried to strip away my home and destroy my career.
“Mercy requires repentance, Diane,” I said with absolute clarity. “You don't regret what you did. You only regret that you were caught. You thought my grandfather’s house was a prize for you to steal. Now you will learn the cost of taking what was never yours.”
In the distance, the wailing sirens of three Raleigh police cruisers cut through the thunder.
May you like
Flashing blue and red lights illuminated the wet country road as the squad cars pulled up behind Diane. Two officers stepped out into the rain, pulled Diane up from the mud, and forced her hands behind her back, snapping on the handcuffs for the final time.
Her bail was formally revoked that night. She would await her sentencing where she belonged: behind bars.
