Chapter 17 - The Broadcast
Eleanor’s face appeared on the high-definition screen. She was sitting in her lavish penthouse living room, dressed in an emerald silk robe, holding a crystal glass of bourbon, a triumphant, gloating smile painted across her manicured features.
"Did you secure the ledger, Frank?" Eleanor purred, not looking closely at the screen. "Tell me you burned it on the dock. I want that bastard Thomas with no teeth before sunrise."
"Frank is a little tied up right now, Mother," I said calmly, turning the camera to frame Sheriff Miller, two state troopers, and Frank Vance kneeling in handcuffs against the dock railing.
Eleanor froze. The ice cubes in her glass clicked sharply against the crystal. Her smile evaporated into a grotesque mask of shock and horror.
"Sarah?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
"Good evening, Eleanor," Sheriff Miller announced loudly, leaning into the camera's view. "This is Sheriff Robert Miller of the Ulster County Sheriff's Department. Your employees here have just been apprehended on multiple felony counts of armed breaking and entering, criminal conspiracy, and attempted destruction of evidence. And thanks to Mr. Vance’s active audio transmitter, every single order you gave him over the last forty-eight hours has been recorded directly to the State Police server."
Eleanor’s jaw dropped. The glass slipped from her fingers, tumbling onto her white Persian rug and shattering into a hundred glittering shards, dark bourbon spreading like spilled blood across the wool.
"This is a mistake!" Eleanor screeched, lunging closer to her camera until her face was distorted with rage. "You cannot arrest them! That property belongs to a family trust! I am the executor! Sarah is an unfit mother, she’s mentally unstable, she stole my granddaughter!"
"Mother," I interrupted, stepping forward so only my face filled the screen. "Look around you. Julian is in handcuffs. Frank is in handcuffs. Your high-priced attorney Arthur Sterling is going to be served with an ethics disbarment filing before the courts open at nine o'clock. And tomorrow morning, Dad’s original 1998 arson file will be sitting on the desk of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York."
"You wouldn't dare," she breathed, her lips trembling with pure venom. "You destroy me, Sarah, and you destroy our name! You destroy Lily's future!"
"Lily’s future has nothing to do with your name," I said, my voice steady as an iron pillar. "Lily’s name is Bennett. We build our house on rock, Eleanor. You built yours on lies, arson, and cruelty. And tonight, the tide came in."
I hung up the call.
The deputies loaded Vance and his associates into the patrol boats. Julian sat wrapped in a police foil blanket on the bench, staring at his shoes, weeping silently as a young deputy placed him under arrest for accessory to burglary.
As they led him down the pier, Julian looked back at me one last time. "Sarah... will you tell Lily... that I'm sorry?"
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I looked at him for a long, quiet moment. "Lily doesn't know you, Julian. And after tonight, she never will."
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