Chapter 7 - The Unraveling
The interrogation rooms at King County Jail were sterile, grey, and lit by humming fluorescent tubes.
Hayes Sterling sat in Room B, his bespoke linen shirt wrinkled, his hair disheveled, frantically sweating as his court-appointed defense attorney whispered urgently into his ear. Across the hallway, in Room A, Delaney was curled into a ball on a metal chair, her mascara smeared down her cheeks, weeping uncontrollably.
Detective Miller entered Hayes’s room first, carrying a thick legal pad. He sat down heavily across from Hayes and dropped a stack of high-resolution color photographs onto the table.
They were photographs of the Tacoma machinist’s ledger, the seized CAD files from Hayes's personal laptop, and the chemical analysis from the state lab.
"Your venture firm was raided by the SEC forty minutes ago, Hayes," Miller said casually, leaning back. "They found the offshore dummy accounts in the Cayman Islands. Six point two million dollars missing. You’re looking at federal wire fraud, grand larceny, and corporate embezzlement. That’s fifteen years right off the bat."
Hayes swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. "I... I want to cooperate. I didn't want anyone to get seriously hurt. It wasn't my idea to use the tiara!"
His attorney reached out, grabbing Hayes’s arm. "Hayes, be quiet—"
"No!" Hayes shouted, jerking his arm away, his eyes wild with terror. "I’m not spending the rest of my life in a federal penitentiary for Delaney’s vanity! She’s the one who insisted on doing it at the wedding! She said Sloan was an arrogant bitch who needed to be broken publicly! She designed the ambush!"
"Did you machine the needle, Hayes?" Miller asked, his pen poised.
"I ordered it!" Hayes choked out, completely breaking down. "I got the chemical compound from a bio-research contact in Vancouver! But Delaney was the one who applied the force! She told me she wanted to make sure it dug deep enough that Sloan couldn't just brush it off! Delaney wanted the blood! She said the blood would make the viral video more dramatic!"
Behind the two-way mirror in the adjacent observation booth, Detective Miller’s partner was recording every single confession.
Ten minutes later, Miller walked into Room A, where Delaney was sobbing.
He didn't say a word. He simply placed a small digital recorder on the table and pressed *Play*.
Hayes’s panicked, desperate voice filled the interrogation room: *“Delaney was the one who insisted on doing it at the wedding! She wanted to make sure it dug deep enough! Delaney wanted the blood!”*
Delaney stopped crying. Her mouth fell open. The manufactured tears dried instantly, replaced by a venomous, unhinged fury that warped her features.
"He said *what*?!" Delaney shrieked, slamming both cuffed hands onto the metal table. "That pathetic, broke coward! He begged me to help him! He told me his company was failing! He told me that if we didn't get Sloan declared incompetent by the end of the month, the feds were going to seize everything!"
"So you admit you coordinated the injection to trigger the incapacity clause of your grandfather's trust?" Miller asked calmly.
"It was Hayes’s idea to use the drug!" Delaney screamed, throwing herself against the table. "He’s the one who bought it! I just wanted my share of Arthur’s money! Arthur had no right to give everything to Sloan! Sloan is nothing! She’s a boring, pathetic loser who sits in an office all day! I deserved that estate! I am the one who was meant to do great things!"
"Thank you, Mrs. Sterling," Miller said, picking up his recorder and standing up. "That will look wonderful in the grand jury transcript."
"Wait!" Delaney panicked, her voice cracking into a desperate shriek as Miller walked toward the door. "Where is my mother?! Laurelai! Tell my mother to pay the bail! She has Arthur’s secondary diamond collection! Tell her to sell the stones!"
Miller paused at the door, glancing back with an expression of pure pity.
"Your mother was just taken into custody in the lobby, Delaney. She tried to board an international flight to Zurich from Sea-Tac an hour ago carrying forty thousand dollars in cash and three forged deeds to your grandfather's commercial properties. She isn't bailing anyone out."
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The door clicked shut. The heavy deadbolt engaged from the outside. Delaney Montgomery-Sterling was left alone in the cold grey room, her screams of rage echoing off the cinderblock walls, entirely unheard by the world she had tried so desperately to conquer.
***
