Chapter 29 - The Deposition Trap
By Thursday morning, the corporate war had moved from the shadows of private dining clubs into the sterile, unforgiving arena of a federal deposition.
We were seated in the Vance & Mercer flagship boardroom. The long walnut table was covered with microphones, digital recording equipment, and thick stacks of forensic accounting binders. Sarah sat to my left, her posture impeccable, a legal predator waiting in the reeds. Across the table sat the federal prosecutor and a designated stenographer, her fingers hovering over her keys.
At the far end of the room, a ninety-inch high-definition monitor displayed the feed from a law office in San José, Costa Rica. Victor Sloan sat on the screen, flanked by two aggressive defense attorneys. Victor looked entirely too comfortable. He wore a crisp linen suit, a golden tan from the Central American sun, and a smug, patronizing smile that made my blood run cold. He believed he was untouchable, safely hidden behind international extradition laws and a mountain of forged documents.
"Mr. Sloan," the federal prosecutor began, adjusting his microphone. "You are appearing today under oath pursuant to the mutual legal assistance treaty. Do you understand that perjury in this setting carries federal penalties?"
"I understand completely," Victor replied smoothly, his voice carrying the polished resonance of a man accustomed to lying to shareholders. "I am here voluntarily to assist the Vance family in unraveling the tragic financial mess left behind by Claire’s late father."
I felt Marcus’s hand rest heavily on my shoulder from where he sat in the gallery seating behind me. His silent support was the only thing keeping me from throwing a water glass at the monitor.
Sarah opened a black binder, clicking her pen. "Let’s discuss the offshore reserve account, Mr. Sloan. You claim that David Vance authorized this account prior to his death, and that Claire Vance recently attempted to withdraw two point eight million dollars from it to fund her charity."
"That is correct," Victor sighed, acting the part of the disappointed elder statesman. "David wanted a slush fund. I advised against it, but he insisted. Recently, Claire discovered the funds and attempted to move them to the children's center to hide the money behind a charitable tax shield. When the bank blocked it, she fabricated this ridiculous story about a stolen passport to cover her tracks."
"Fascinating narrative," Sarah noted dryly. She pulled a single sheet of paper from her binder and slid it across the table to the prosecutor. "Mr. Sloan, are you familiar with a man named Julian Vance-Garrison?"
Victor’s smug smile faltered by a fraction of a millimeter. It was a microscopic shift, but on the high-definition monitor, I saw it. His eyes darted quickly to his off-screen attorney before returning to the camera.
"The name sounds vaguely familiar. Perhaps a former independent contractor?" Victor lied smoothly.
"He is a corporate fixer with a rap sheet for industrial espionage in three states," Sarah clarified, her voice gaining velocity. "And he is currently sitting in federal custody in an FBI holding cell in downtown Chicago."
Victor went entirely still. The relaxed slope of his shoulders vanished.
Sarah pressed her advantage without missing a beat. "You see, Mr. Sloan, Daniel Mercer surrendered to authorities yesterday afternoon. He provided the FBI with the encrypted routing numbers you used to pay Julian to hack the Vance estate security grid. When the FBI raided Julian's hotel room last night, they didn't just find the burner phone he used to communicate with you. They found a high-resolution digital scanner."
"My client has no knowledge of any break-in," Victor’s attorney barked through the speakers, his voice edged with sudden panic. "This is a baseless fishing expedition!"
"It’s not a fishing expedition. It’s a closed trap," I said, speaking for the first time. I leaned into the microphone, my eyes locking onto Victor’s across three thousand miles of fiber-optic cable. "Julian rolled on you, Victor. He confessed to breaking into my safe. He confessed to cloning my passport. And, most importantly, he confessed that he was the one who logged into the bank portal from a Chicago IP address to initiate the wire transfer to the charity, acting on your direct orders."
Victor stared at the camera, his face turning an ashen, sickly gray beneath his tan. "He's lying. A criminal trying to cut a plea deal."
"Perhaps," Sarah said, smiling with the warmth of a shark. "But the FBI also recovered a recorded phone call from Julian’s encrypted cloud backup. A call placed by you, Mr. Sloan, complaining that Arthur Vance’s forged signature on the power of attorney wasn't holding up, and ordering Julian to quote, 'use the girl's passport before the board locks down the accounts.'"
The silence in the boardroom was absolute. The stenographer’s keys clacked loudly, recording the exact moment Victor Sloan’s empire of lies collapsed.
Victor looked wildly at his attorneys, but they were already leaning away from him, frantically whispering to each other, realizing their client had just dragged them into an active federal wire fraud and espionage conspiracy.
"This deposition is suspended," Victor’s lead attorney announced hastily, reaching toward the camera. "We are invoking the Fifth Amendment and terminating this feed."
"Terminate it all you want," the federal prosecutor said coldly into the microphone. "I’m signing the interpol red notice request in five minutes. Your client's passport is flagged, gentlemen. If he tries to leave Costa Rica, he will be detained at the airport."
The screen went black, leaving the boardroom in a stunned, victorious quiet.
I sat back in my chair, exhaling a breath I felt like I had been holding for two years. The ghost that had been haunting my father’s legacy was finally chained to the wall.
"We got him," Sarah murmured, closing her binder with a definitive snap. "He's finished."
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I looked back at Marcus. He was smiling, a look of profound pride in his eyes. We had won. But as I stood up to shake the prosecutor's hand, my secure phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text message from Frank.
Mrs. Cole. Don't leave the building. We have a massive problem.
