Chapter 11: The Defense Attorney's Visit
The small, windowless attorney-client consultation room was lit by a single flickering overhead tube. Across the laminate table sat Arthur Sterling Jr.—not Clara, but her older brother, a sharp, unyielding defense attorney who had quietly taken on her case pro bono under the guise of an independent public defender assigned by the court.
He slid a manila folder across the table toward Eleanor and Rohesen, who sat side by side, their wrists still cuffed to eyelets bolted into the wooden armrests.
"Your preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday morning," Arthur said, his voice flat and clinical. "The district attorney is pushing for a joint indictment on charges of corporate fraud, conspiracy, and attempted murder via heavy metal poisoning. The evidence recovered from your private study—the server, the hard drive, the forged financial ledgers bearing Mrs. Vance’s signature—makes for an exceptionally difficult trial."
Rohesen leaned forward, his eyes bloodshot and desperate. "You know it was a setup! Your sister Clara engineered the entire thing to avenge your father!"
Arthur Sterling did not flinch. He adjusted his glasses, staring at Rohesen with cold detachment. "My sister Clara is a grieving young woman who worked legally as a domestic domestic employee in your residence and discovered evidence of your illegal financial activities by pure coincidence. That is the narrative presented in the police report, and that is the narrative that will stand before a jury."
"You’re lying," Rohesen growled, straining against the handcuffs. "You're part of the conspiracy!"
"Mr. Vance, screaming at me won't alter the fact that your own signature is on documents dating back five years," Arthur replied smoothly, packing his briefcase. "My advice, as your court-appointed counsel, is to plead guilty to the lesser financial charges in exchange for dropping the attempted murder indictment. It’s the only way you’ll see freedom before you turn sixty."
Eleanor watched the attorney with intense, unblinking focus. She didn't raise her voice, nor did she make a single aggressive movement. Instead, she leaned back against her chair, her maroon dress contrasting sharply with the sterile gray walls of the room.
"You left a digital fingerprint when you transferred the proxy access keys from your firm's server to Clara's burner phone last Tuesday at 2:14 AM," Eleanor said quietly.
Arthur paused, his hand freezing on the latch of his briefcase. He did not look up immediately.
"The cloud backup service we use for the estate automatically timestamps every external API request and cross-references it with local ISP routing logs," Eleanor continued, her voice gaining strength. "Even if you wipe the local hard drive, the off-site redundant server in Zurich holds the unalterable metadata showing the exact IP address of the laptop used to forge those signatures. And that IP address traces directly back to your private law office downtown, Mr. Sterling."
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The room fell into absolute silence. The flickering fluorescent light buzzed overhead, marking the passage of seconds like a ticking bomb.
Arthur slowly closed his briefcase, sat back down, and looked at Eleanor with a completely different expression—one not of dismissive arrogance, but of grudging, cautious respect.
