Chapter 10 - The Unraveling
-10-
While Emily and I were restoring order and strength to the Hartwell corporate empire in downtown Denver, four miles away at the Denver County Detention Center, the reality of their self-constructed prison was finally setting in for Evan and Gloria Davis.
The holding cell was a sterile box of cinder block and reinforced glass, smelling faintly of industrial disinfectant and stale metallic air. There were no crystal wine glasses here, no gourmet roast beef, no velvet armchairs, and certainly no servants to bark orders at.
Evan sat on the edge of the hard metal bunk, his head buried in his hands, staring blankly at the scratched concrete floor. His designer shirt was wrinkled and stained, his hair unwashed, his eyes sunken and hollow. The fifty-thousand-dollar monthly spending limit, the luxury sports car parked in the Cherry Hills garage, the country club memberships—all of it had vanished into thin air like smoke.
Footsteps echoed down the concrete corridor, heavy and deliberate.
A prison guard stopped outside Cell Block 4B, rattling a set of keys against the iron bars before sliding the door open with a loud, grating screech.
“Davis. Visitor. Visiting booth three,” the guard barked apathetically.
Evan didn't move. He didn't even look up. “I don't have any visitors. My lawyers won't even return my calls.”
“It’s not a lawyer, pal,” the guard said, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s your mother. Well, technically, she’s in the adjacent holding booth because she’s currently facing federal indictment number four-zero-two, but she insisted on screaming your name down the intercom until we brought you down.”
Evan let out a ragged, humorless laugh, slowly standing up from the bunk and shuffling his feet toward the door in standard-issue orange jumpsuit and rubber slides.
The visiting booth was divided by a thick pane of scratched Plexiglas, flanked by grimy steel intercom boxes. Gloria sat on the other side in her own orange jumpsuit, her hair disheveled, her expensive makeup smeared across her tear-streaked face.
Evan picked up the heavy plastic receiver, and Gloria did the same, pressing it against her ear.
“Evan! Oh, thank God, they finally brought you down!” Gloria shrieked through the static-filled intercom speaker, her voice trembling with hysteria. “You have to do something! You have to call Daniel Cho! You have to make a deal with Margaret! They’re saying the federal prosecutor is pushing for a mandatory twelve-year sentence without parole! Twelve years, Evan! In a federal penitentiary!”
Evan stared at his mother through the scratched plastic pane. For thirty-two years, Gloria had shielded him, enabled him, taught him that he was better than everyone else, and encouraged him to treat human beings like disposable stepping stones. She had been the architect of his entitlement, whispering poison into his ear every time he wanted to take a shortcut, every time he wanted to steal something that didn't belong to him.
“There is no deal, Mom,” Evan said, his voice flat, dead, and entirely devoid of emotion.
Gloria stopped crying for a fraction of a second, staring at him in confusion. “What do you mean there’s no deal? You’re a man! You’re smart! Find a loophole! Call your college friends! Tell them to—”
“My college friends won't even accept my collect calls, Mom,” Evan interrupted, cutting her off sharply. “Our bank accounts are seized. Our shell companies are frozen. Our lawyers dropped us because our retainers bounced. And Margaret has the digital voice recording of us planning the entire embezzlement scheme and framing Emily.”
Gloria’s face twisted in blind panic. “That... that’s impossible! How did she find the recorder? You said you hid it in the home office safe!”
“I didn't hide it well enough,” Evan whispered, closing his eyes as a single tear slipped down his cheek. “We lost, Mom. We lost everything.”
Gloria slammed her fists against the Plexiglas partition, screaming obscenities into the intercom, her face purple with rage, blaming everyone, cursing the world, screaming that it wasn't fair.
May you like
Evan slowly lowered the plastic receiver onto its cradle, cutting off her shrieks of despair. He turned away from the glass, walking back down the concrete corridor toward his cell, finally realizing the ultimate truth of the world he had tried to exploit:
When you build your life on a foundation of stolen glass, it doesn't take an earthquake to bring it crashing down. A single, quiet whisper is more than enough.
