Chapter 12 - The Legal Iron Curtain
By noon, the Raleigh police had taken Derek into custody at the motel, recovering nineteen thousand of the stolen twenty-five thousand dollars from his duffel bag. The rest had already been spent on a deposit for a sports car he never got to drive. I sat across from Marcus Vance in his sleek, glass-walled office downtown, reviewing the preliminary charges sheet. Marcus was a retired JAG officer who didn't tolerate nonsense, and when he saw the forged power of attorney combined with the military deployment timestamps, his eyes lit up with professional satisfaction.
“Mark, this is an absolute slam dunk,” Marcus said, sliding his reading glasses down his nose as he tapped a stack of legal briefs. “Because you were deployed under active federal orders when the asset embezzlement occurred, this isn't just local grand larceny. It crosses into federal military fraud under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act violations. Sarah and Derek aren't just looking at divorce court; they’re looking at serious federal indictments.”
“I want maximum exposure, Marcus,” I said, leaning forward, resting my forearms on his polished mahogany desk. “I want full custody of Lily, I want the house completely signed over to my name without a single contest in the divorce settlement, and I want every cent of legal fees covered by their estates.”
Marcus smiled thinly. “Given that Derek is already singing like a canary down at the precinct and blaming Sarah for orchestrating the entire financial scheme, your wife’s defense counsel is going to have a catastrophic time in court. Sarah’s lawyer called me an hour ago trying to negotiate a quiet settlement. She wants to surrender all rights to the marital home and agree to sole custody for you in exchange for dropping the federal embezzlement charges.”
“No deals,” I replied instantly. “Let her sweat. She didn't offer me any mercy when she was plotting to drain my bank account while I was dodging mortar rounds overseas.”
“Understood,” Marcus said, making a sharp note on his legal pad. “I’ll file the emergency custody order and the expedited divorce motion this afternoon. With the evidence we have, the judge will sign off by tomorrow morning.”
May you like
As I left Marcus’s office and stepped out onto the sunlit sidewalk of Fayetteville Street, my phone buzzed again. It wasn't Sarah this time, and it wasn't Brenda. It was an unfamiliar local number with a text attachment.
I tapped the screen. It was a photo of Sarah sitting alone on a park bench outside the county courthouse, head in her hands, looking utterly defeated. Below the image was a short text from an unknown source: *“She’s looking for you, Mark. She knows she has nowhere left to run.”*
