Chapter 5 - The Plea Bargain
The visiting room at the Metropolitan Correctional Center was grey, sterile, and smelled of industrial bleach.
Grant sat across from me behind a thick sheet of plexiglass, his expensive suit replaced by a coarse, oversized orange jumpsuit. His hair was unwashed, his face pale, the arrogant, mocking smile entirely wiped from his expression. For the first time in three years, he looked exactly like what he was: a broken bully trapped in a room he couldn't control.
"You think you’ve won, don't you, Clara?" Grant whispered through the intercom, his voice shaking with a dangerous, unstable fury. "The lawyers say the evidence is tight. But I’ll get out. I have connections. I have people who owe me favors."
"You don't have anyone left, Grant," I said quietly, leaning forward against the metal counter. "Your 'connections' were the first ones to sign plea deals the second Detective Vance showed them the spreadsheet of your offshore shell companies. They traded your name to save their own skin."
Grant swallowed hard, his eyes darting frantically around the room. "What do you want, Clara? Money? I can tell you where the hidden Swiss accounts are. There’s twelve million dollars that the feds missed. It’s yours. All of it. Just drop the domestic violence testimony. Let me plead down to a white-collar misdemeanor."
I looked at him, and for a split second, I remembered the sound of his laughter in our living room while music played from the expensive speakers. I remembered the cold tile of the bathroom floor.
"I don't want your money, Grant. I have my old job back at the Attorney General's office. I start on Monday," I said, my voice completely level, carrying the weight of an absolute sentence. "I came here to give you one piece of information before the trial begins."
"What?" he breathed, his hands pressing against the plexiglass.
"The state prosecutor isn't offering a plea deal," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "We’re going to trial on twenty-four counts of first-degree felony assault, corporate fraud, and grand larceny. And I will be the primary witness. I'm going to play every single video you recorded for your own entertainment in front of a federal jury."
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Grant’s face drained of what little color it had left. He took a staggering step back from the glass, his breath hitching as the finality of his fate settled into his chest.
"You always make that sound right before you break, Grant," I whispered through the receiver, repeating the exact words he had spoken to me in the dark. "Let's see how you sound in front of a judge."
