Chapter 8 - The Prison Visit
Two weeks later.
The federal detention center in downtown Atlanta was cold, sterile, and smelled of industrial floor cleaner.
My broken collarbone had begun to heal, though my arm remained in a lighter, black fiberglass cast. My leg braces had been adjusted, allowing me to walk short distances with the aid of a cane, though I still used my wheelchair for long trips.
I sat on one side of a thick plexiglass partition in the attorney visitation room.
A heavy metal door opened on the opposite side. A guard escorted Vivian Hale into the room.
The transformation was shocking.
The high-society queen of Atlanta was gone. She wore an oversized orange jumpsuit, her designer blonde hair was limp and graying at the roots, and her un-manicured hands were bound by a heavy waist chain and handcuffs.
She sat down heavily across from me, picking up the black telephone receiver with shaking hands.
I picked up my receiver.
"Are you here to gloat, Clara?" Vivian spat, her voice hollow and raspy through the electronic earpiece. "Are you here to see what you've done to your family?"
"You aren't my family, Vivian," I said calmly, looking at her without a trace of fear or anger. "You never were. And as for gloating... I don't need to. The legal system is doing that for me."
Vivian’s jaw tightened. "Julian is an innocent boy! He didn't know about the accounts!"
"Julian signed twenty-four fraudulent wire transfers," I reminded her. "He rejected a plea deal yesterday. He's facing thirty years in a federal penitentiary. And your trial begins in three months. With the ledgers we recovered from Blackwood Falls, the prosecution is seeking life without parole."
Vivian pressed her forehead against the plexiglass, tears of rage spilling down her hollow cheeks. "I gave you a home! After your father died, I could have left you on the street! I kept you alive!"
"You kept me alive because my father's trust fund paid you fifty thousand dollars a year until I turned eighteen," I said, my voice ice cold. "And when I turned eighteen, you tried to convince me I was crazy so I wouldn't ask where the money went."
She glared at me, her eyes burning with a desperate, pathetic hatred. "You think you won? You're broken, Clara. Your husband is dead. You're alone in a wheelchair."
I leaned forward, placing my palm against the glass.
"I'm not alone, Vivian," I said softly. "Over the last two weeks, Agent Vance's task force used your ledger to identify seventy-eight of the children you sold. Twelve of them have already been located in Europe and America. They are adults now. They have families. And yesterday, I established the Clara Hale Foundation—funded entirely by the fifty-two million dollars seized from your Panamanian accounts."
Vivian gasped, her face twisting in agony.
"Your stolen wealth is going to pay for their education, their healthcare, and their therapy," I told her. "Every cent you stole will be used to heal the lives you tried to destroy."
I hung up the phone receiver.
May you like
Vivian slammed her handcuffed fists against the glass, screaming soundlessly as the guards grabbed her shoulders and dragged her back toward her cell block.
I turned my wheelchair around and walked out into the sunlight.
