Chapter 15 - The Unraveling Web
Two weeks later, inside a high-security federal deposition facility in Alexandria, Virginia, Rebecca sat across a steel conference table from her father.
Richard Hayes looked shrunken. Stripped of the comfortable home Rebecca had bought and paid for, dressed in a faded civilian suit provided by a public defender, he seemed like an apparition of the domineering patriarch he had once pretended to be. His hands shook as he reached for a paper cup of water.
Special Agent Thorne and Rebecca’s private attorney, David Morris—who had flown in from Reno—sat at her flanks.
"Why did you come, Rebecca?" Richard asked, his voice cracking with self-pity. "Have you come to gloat? To see your old man before they send me to prison?"
Rebecca did not blink. "I came to look you in the eye, Richard, and ask you one question: Was there ever a moment during those twenty years when you saw me as your daughter, or was I always just an open checkbook?"
Richard looked down at his trembling hands, unable to hold her gaze. "You don't understand what it was like... after your mother died. Everything fell apart. The business failed. The bills kept coming. You were off across the world, wearing that uniform, being honored, living an exciting life! We were drowning here!"
"You were drowning because you refused to work!" Rebecca’s voice cut through the room like a broadside volley. "I lived on gray-hulled warships, sleeping in six-foot berths, rationing fresh water, risking my life in foreign straits! I sent you one hundred and ten thousand dollars of my hard-earned combat pay so you could keep my mother's garden alive, so you wouldn't freeze in the winter! And what did you do?"
She leaned forward, her eyes blazing with fierce, righteous clarity.
"The moment you thought I was out of the way, you moved Brenda and her parasite husband into my bedroom. You threw my uniform ribbons into the dust. You took money from corrupt defense lobbyists to frame me for treason just so you could buy back the delusion of your own comfort!"
"Brenda told me it would just be an administrative review!" Richard wept, tears finally spilling down his weathered cheeks. "She said they just wanted to slow your promotion down so we could negotiate! She told me you wouldn't actually be hurt!"
"Brenda is facing ten years in a federal penitentiary for wire fraud and conspiracy," David Morris interjected coldly. "And because you signed the corporate affidavits verifying those fabricated ledgers, Mr. Hayes, the United States Attorney has named you as an unindicted co-conspirator. You are only sitting in this room instead of a holding cell because your daughter explicitly requested that the federal prosecutor grant you deferred sentencing on medical leniency."
Richard froze. He looked up at Rebecca, his eyes wide with disbelief and an agonizing surge of shame.
"You... you protected me from prison?" he whispered.
"I did not protect you for your sake, Richard," Rebecca replied, her voice steady and resolute. "I did it for my mother. She loved you once, before your weakness consumed everything decent in you. I will not have her memory stained by her husband dying behind bars."
She stood up, buttoning her navy service jacket.
"You will live in the small assisted-living facility in Carson City that the county has assigned to you. The deed to the Tahoe home is permanently transferred to the Eleanor Hayes Marine Conservatory. You will never set foot on that soil again. You will never receive another phone call, another letter, or another dollar from me. As far as the United States Navy and I are concerned, Richard... you no longer exist."
She turned her back on him and walked toward the heavy steel door.
"Rebecca! Please!" Richard cried out, reaching across the table, but the federal marshal’s hand clamped down firmly on his shoulder, keeping him in his seat. "Rebecca, I’m your father!"
May you like
The door opened, Rebecca stepped through, and the latch engaged with a final, echoing thud.
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