Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail
While Delaney was being booked into the King County Correctional Facility, I was sitting across from Assistant District Attorney Sarah Vance—Dr. Vance’s sister and one of the sharpest criminal prosecutors in the Pacific Northwest—inside a secure conference room on the fifth floor of the courthouse.
On the table between us lay three thick manila folders containing the preliminary results of the police raid on Hayes and Delaney’s rented estate.
"They weren't even smart about it, Sloan," Sarah Vance said, shaking her head as she flipped through the pages. "Arrogance makes criminals incredibly sloppy. When people have never faced consequences in their lives, they leave digital footprints like elephants in mud."
"What did you find?" I asked, touching the bandage on my head. The throbbing had subsided, replaced by a lingering, dull stiffness.
"First: The tiara," Sarah said, sliding an invoice across the mahogany table.
It was a receipt from an underground precision fabrication shop in an industrial park in Tacoma. The order, placed three weeks before the wedding, called for: *'Custom high-tensile steel transdermal delivery pin, modified base with friction-break snap ring.'*
The invoice totaled four thousand two hundred dollars. It was paid using a business credit card registered to *Aegis Bio-Ventures*—Hayes Sterling’s private investment firm.
"We pulled the machinist in for questioning an hour ago," Sarah continued. "He cracked within ten minutes. He thought he was building a rapid-delivery veterinary device for an agricultural research grant. Hayes provided the CAD schematics himself."
"And the Carbamyl-7?" I asked, my skin prickling.
"That’s where Hayes’s house of cards completely collapses into federal territory," Sarah explained, tapping a second dossier. "Hayes didn't just buy the drug on the dark web. Aegis Bio-Ventures was secretly hemorrhaging cash. Hayes had embezzled nearly six million dollars from his venture capital partners to fund his extravagant lifestyle, the wedding, and the reality documentary. His partners were three days away from auditing his accounts."
I leaned in, the sheer depravity of the plan coming into sharp focus. "He was drowning."
"He was completely broke," Sarah confirmed. "His entire high-society image was a complete facade. The only asset on earth that could save him from twenty years in federal prison for securities fraud was your grandfather’s forty-two million dollar Montgomery Estate."
"And Delaney knew?"
"Delaney not only knew; she was the architect of the wedding stunt," Sarah said grimly, producing a stack of printed text messages extracted from Delaney’s confiscated iPhone.
I looked down at the screen-captures. The messages between Delaney and Hayes were sickening:
*Delaney (May 14): "If she just acts crazy at a dinner, nobody will believe it. It has to be in front of everyone. In front of the cameras. If she attacks me while I'm in my bridal gown, the footage will go global. The probate judge won't have a choice. Mom said she’ll testify that Sloan was hallucinating."*
*Hayes (May 15): "The pin is ready. It only takes twenty pounds of direct pressure to snap the reservoir release. When you shove the tiara on her, don't hold back. Drive it down. Make sure it punctures the scalp."*
*Delaney (May 15): "I can't wait to see her face. She thinks she’s so much better than us because Arthur left her the money. By Tuesday, I’ll be running the trust, and Sloan will be locked in a private sanitarium in Oregon."*
My stomach heaved. Reading the cold, mechanical words written by my own sister—a girl I had protected from our mother’s erratic outbursts when we were children, a girl whose college tuition I had quietly supplemented—felt like an execution of my memories.
"What about Laurelai?" I managed to ask, my voice trembling. "Did she know about the poison?"
Sarah sighed, pulling out a third document. "Your mother is a master of willful ignorance, Sloan. She didn't buy the pin, and she didn't know the exact chemical name. But we recovered an email from Hayes to Laurelai sent two weeks ago. In it, Hayes explicitly promises her a monthly allowance of fifty thousand dollars and a penthouse apartment in Maui the moment Sloan is 'legally incapacitated' and Delaney assumes control of Arthur’s estate."
Laurelai didn't care if I was poisoned, beaten, or institutionalized. She only cared about her monthly payout.
"What happens now, Sarah?" I asked, staring at the evidence.
Sarah Vance closed the folders, her eyes fierce with professional determination.
"Now, we seize every asset Hayes Sterling owns. We file federal wire fraud, attempted murder, and aggravated chemical battery charges. And as for Delaney? The magistrate just set her bail at five million dollars, cash-only. And since Hayes’s accounts have been frozen by federal investigators, she isn't getting out."
Sarah looked directly into my eyes. "The video they posted of you is still trending online. It has over two million views. People are still destroying your reputation. Do you want to issue a statement?"
I stood up, adjusting my blazer. The timidity, the heartbreak, and the lingering residue of family loyalty dissolved completely, burned away by the raw fire of justice.
May you like
"No statement," I said coldly. "Call a full press conference in the King County Courthouse media room. Invite every single outlet Delaney tagged in her wedding press release. Invite the network she pitched the documentary to. It's time the world saw the real footage."
***
