Chapter 10 - The Police Interrogation Room
Three days after the gala, I was invited to the Manhattan Central Booking facility by the Special Prosecutions Bureau.
Detective Miller led Marcus and me down the sterile, fluorescent-lit concrete corridor toward Observation Room 4.
"Richard Holloway finally agreed to a full proffer session," Miller explained as we walked. "He realized that Vanessa and Bradley Vance are both trying to cut individual plea deals to testify against him. The old man is terrified of dying in a federal penitentiary in Colorado."
Miller swiped his keycard and opened the heavy steel door to the observation booth.
Behind the one-way mirror sat Richard Holloway.
The arrogance, the sharp three-piece suits, and the golden swagger were completely gone. Richard was dressed in a rough orange prison jumpsuit, his silver hair unkempt, his face hollow and gray. He sat slumped over the steel table, staring at a styrofoam cup of cold water.
Across from him sat Evelyn Vance and two FBI agents.
"Let’s go over the timeline again, Richard," Prosecutor Vance said, tapping a thick stack of bank records. "On October 14th, two months before Adrian Sterling’s wife passed away, you met with Bradley Vance at the Harvard Club. What was agreed upon?"
Richard rubbed his trembling hands over his face, letting out a long, broken sigh that rattled in the microphones.
"It was Bradley’s idea from the start," Richard whispered, his voice cracking with defeat. "Bradley came to me. He said Sarah had established an ironclad trust for the girls that couldn't be broken by normal litigation. He said... he said the only way to tap the seventy-million-dollar liquid reserve was to create a scenario where Adrian became vulnerable and needed a partner."
"And Vanessa?" the FBI agent pressed. "What was her role?"
"Vanessa wanted the lifestyle," Richard muttered, shaking his head. "She wanted the Sterling estate. She wanted the Hamptons property. She told me she could manipulate Adrian into marriage within a year. But when Emma was born... Vanessa realized the baby was the primary beneficiary under Sarah's direct bloodline clause. Vanessa became obsessed with removing the child."
I stood behind the one-way glass, feeling the cold fury rise in my chest once more as I listened to the casual brutality with which they had discussed my family's lives.
"Did you know Vanessa planned to push the stroller down the stairs on the afternoon of the 18th?" Evelyn Vance asked sharply.
Richard looked up, his bloodshot eyes staring blankly ahead.
"I told her to wait for the medical route," Richard confessed softly. "I told her the doctor’s sedative would look natural. But Vanessa was impatient. She said Adrian was starting to ask questions about the Hamptons escrow accounts. She said she had to create an emergency that would frame Clara and force Adrian into an immediate marriage to secure custody. She told me: 'Once Clara is in prison, Adrian will have nobody left to lean on except me.'"
"And you approved it?"
Richard swallowed hard, his chin trembling. "...I didn't stop her."
Prosecutor Vance stood up, closing her file with a decisive snap that echoed through the interrogation room.
"That is all we need, Mr. Holloway. You have just formally admitted to premeditated conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree."
As the agents stood up to escort Richard back to his cell, the broken old man looked up at the one-way glass, as if sensing that I was standing right behind it.
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"Tell Adrian..." Richard choked out, tears finally spilling over his wrinkled cheeks. "Tell Adrian I'm sorry."
I didn't say a word. I simply turned my back on the glass, walked out of the observation booth, and left the ghosts of the Holloway family behind in the dark.
