Chapter 9
The sterile smell of antiseptic hung heavy in the private recovery room on the sixth floor of City General Hospital. Clara sat up slightly in the adjustable bed, wincing as a sharp pain twinged in her bruised ribs. A white bandage covered the cut on her cheek where Julian had struck her, and her blonde hair was tangled against the white pillowcase. The door clicked open, and Agent Miller walked in quietly, closing it firmly behind him. He held a small notepad in one hand and a digital recorder in the other, placing them on the bedside tray without preamble. "How are you feeling, Mrs. Vance?" Miller asked, his tone polite but entirely devoid of warmth. Clara pulled the thin hospital blanket tighter around her shoulders. "I feel like I was run over by a freight train," she muttered, her voice raspy. "And soon I'll feel like I'm living in a cage." Miller pulled up a chair and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees. "That depends entirely on your level of cooperation today, Clara. We know you gave us Julian’s passwords, but we also know you personally transferred three million dollars into an unregistered Bahamian account three days ago." Clara’s breath caught in her throat. She had thought that transaction was hidden behind layers of encrypted VPNs and offshore proxies. She looked up at Miller with wide, panicked eyes. "That was my insurance policy," she whispered defensively. "Julian was going to leave me penniless. I had to protect myself." "Protection doesn't look like money laundering, Clara," Miller said evenly, tapping his pen against his notepad. "Under federal sentencing guidelines, that single transaction adds another ten years to your potential prison term. Unless, of course, you provide us with the names of the international brokers who helped you and Julian clean the money through real estate portfolios." Clara stared at the federal agent, the walls closing in around her just as surely as they had in the hotel suite. She realized that Marianne’s threat—"I'm going to destroy you"—was not an empty emotional outburst; it was a blueprint that the federal government was now executing to the letter. She had betrayed Julian to save herself, and she had betrayed Marianne to secure a hidden fortune, but both betrayals had completely backfired. There was no escape hatch left, no secret account to run away to, and no one left to trust. With trembling hands, Clara reached out and nodded slowly toward the agent's recorder. "Turn it on," she whispered, her voice cracking with defeat. "I'll tell you everything."
