Chapter 11 - Brooke’s Surrender
While Ryan sat in central lockup, Brooke was waiting in the outer lobby of the station, weeping into her monogrammed scarf.
Her parents had refused to wire the fifty-thousand-dollar bond. When they discovered that their daughter and son-in-law had been detained for child abandonment and multiple felonies, Brooke’s father—a retired orthopedic surgeon from Cincinnati—had told her through an attorney that they would cover legal defense for *her*, and her alone, on the strict condition that she cooperated fully with the county prosecutor.
Nathan and I walked into the lobby.
Brooke looked up, her mascara running in black rivers down her hollow cheeks. "Claire... please. Talk to them. Tell them it was a misunderstanding."
"It wasn't a misunderstanding, Brooke," I said. "You wrote the ledger. I gave Detective Kowalski your little notebook. Every entry, every date, every transfer from my cards into your checking account."
Brooke gasped, her hand flying to her throat. "Ryan told me you knew! He said you were helping us rebuild our portfolio! He said you agreed to let us use your score because your payroll job gave you low-interest institutional rates!"
"Did you really believe that?" Nathan asked, his voice dripping with icy contempt. "Or did you just want the country club membership and the four-thousand-dollar cruise package to keep up appearances on Instagram?"
Brooke broke.
She collapsed forward onto the lobby bench, her shoulders shaking with ugly, guttural sobs. "He said we’d be fine. He said his new venture was launching in February. He said Claire would never check her credit because she never buys anything anyway."
There it was. The fundamental truth of how they saw me: *Claire never buys anything anyway. Claire doesn't need a life. Claire doesn't need a future.*
"Tomorrow morning, Mrs. Vance," Nathan told her, "you are going to sit down with the county prosecutor. You are going to sign a full sworn affidavit detailing Ryan’s schemes, or you will be indicted as a co-conspirator on three counts of bank fraud. If you do that, the state will likely recommend probation, and you might keep your children. If you protect him, you will be wearing orange alongside him."
Brooke didn't even look back at the detention wing where her husband was sitting on a metal bunk.
May you like
"I'll sign," she whispered. "I'll give them everything."
***
