Chapter 16 - The Interrogation in Santa Ana Federal Holding
At 10:00 a.m. the following Thursday, inside the subterranean maximum-security interview suite of the Santa Ana Federal Detention Center, thirty-six-year-old Brandon Vance sat handcuffed to a stainless-steel table.
He wore his drab orange prison jumpsuit, having spent eighteen months in federal custody.
His hair was buzzed short and streaked with gray, his face pale and hollow under the humming fluorescent tubes, his hands shaking in constant, rhythmic tremors. Stripped of his tailored blazers, his luxury convertibles, his stolen millions, and his manufactured arrogance, he looked like a broken, withered shell of a man.
The heavy steel security door buzzed and clicked open.
Stepping into the room, dressed in an immaculate bespoke three-piece charcoal Italian wool suit, his six-foot-two frame casting a dark, terrifying shadow across the room, was Hank Vance.
Beside him walked myself, Gwen Albright, wearing an elegant royal-emerald tailored wool overcoat, my posture straight, majestic, and completely at peace.
Hankâs silver pocket watch chain gleamed in the harsh light as he pulled out a chair, letting me sit before stepping behind me, resting his large, protective hands on the back of my seat.
Brandon looked up, his bloodshot eyes widening with desperate, pathetic hope as he leaned across the cold steel table.
"Gwen...?! Hank, thank God!" Brandon choked out, his voice cracking into raw, sniveling whimpers. "Did you talk to the United States Attorney?! Did Uncle Harrison tell you about the deal?! I only signed those papers because Harrison promised me he could get my sentence reduced to three years! You have to get me out of here, Gwen! The inmates in this block... they know what I did to my wife! I can't survive twenty-eight years in Mendota!"
I looked down at the man who had tossed two hundred dollars onto a table and told me to buy prime rib.
"Harrison Vance-Reed was arrested three days ago, Brandon," I said softly, every word sharp as surgical diamond. "He is currently sitting in cellblock four down the hall. He will be joining you on the transport bus to Mendota on Monday."
Brandon stared at me, the breath locking completely in his throat.
"And my sister...?" Brandon whispered, his voice barely audible. "What about Heather?"
"Heather was sentenced to twelve years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin," I replied, my voice steady as stone. "Your family's firm is dissolved. Every dollar in your hidden Nevada trusts was seized and transferred to the restitution fund for the families you defrauded."
Hank Vance leaned forward, placing a single legal document flat on the stainless steel:
"Brandon Vance," Hank spoke, his deep baritone rolling off the cinderblock walls like an executionerâs drumbeat. "Under the Universal Lineal Disinheritance and Civil Asset Forfeiture Decree signed yesterday by Chief Judge Eleanor Bradley, your family name has been permanently excised from every corporate and civic registry in the state of California."
Brandon broke down, sobbing uncontrollably, his tears dripping onto the cold metal table.
"Does my mother have a home, Gwen...?" Brandon wept. "Please... does my mother have food?"
I stood up, adjusting my royal-emerald coat, looking down at him for the last time in my life.
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"Rosalind has her social security check and her small apartment in Riverside, Brandon," I said quietly, turning toward the heavy steel door. "She has three hot meals a day... and thirty cups of instant noodles whenever she wants to remember your budget."
The steel door opened with a heavy magnetic clunk, and Hank and I walked out into the corridor, leaving Brandonâs broken wails to echo uselessly against the concrete walls.
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