Chapter 6 - The Rat in the Trap
Three days after the boardroom arrests, the Fulton County Detention Center visiting room smelled of industrial floor cleaner and stale sweat.
Jeffrey sat behind the scratched plastic partition, wearing an orange jumpsuit, his hands handcuffed to his waist belt. His hair was greasy, his face pale and sunken.
On the other side of the glass sat his mother, Noelle, looking disheveled in a cheap thrift-store sweater. She was staying at a budget motel on the outskirts of the city, surviving on whatever small cash she had left in her purse.
“Mom,” Jeffrey rasped into the telephone receiver, his eyes wild. “Did you post my bail?! Why am I still in here? The judge set bail at five hundred thousand dollars!”
Noelle began to cry, dabbing her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “Jeffrey, darling… how can I post bail? All the bank accounts are frozen! Madeline filed an emergency injunction on my small savings account too! She claims I received stolen corporate funds when you bought me that gold watch last Christmas!”
“Sell your jewelry!” Jeffrey begged frantically. “Pawn the antique silver!”
“The police confiscated everything from the motel room yesterday!” Noelle wailed. “They said it was evidence of embezzlement! We have nothing, Jeffrey! Nothing!”
Before Jeffrey could answer, a door opened on his side of the visiting room, and his public defender—a tired young attorney named Mark—sat down beside him.
“I have news regarding your co-defendant, Cynthia Vance,” Mark said flatly, pulling out a legal pad.
Jeffrey sat up straight, a desperate spark of hope flashing in his eyes. “Cynthia? Did her rich father hire a lawyer for us?”
Mark let out a grim, sad chuckle. “No, Jeffrey. Cynthia cut a deal with the District Attorney an hour ago.”
Jeffrey’s breath hitched. “What? What deal?”
“In exchange for a reduced sentence on the embezzlement charges, Cynthia signed a full, sworn affidavit detailing your active role in the financial fraud,” Mark explained, reading from his notes. “She also provided audio recordings of your mother, Noelle, suggesting that you starve Liam to force Madeline into resigning her corporate position.”
Noelle gasped through the phone receiver, dropping the phone onto her lap. “That evil little viper! She lied!”
“That’s not all,” Mark continued, looking at Jeffrey with pity. “As part of her plea negotiation, Cynthia submitted to a court-ordered DNA paternity test regarding her two-year-old son, Austin.”
Jeffrey blinked, his mind struggling to process the words. “Austin? Why would she test Austin? Austin is my son! I’ve been paying his trust fund for two years!”
Mark pulled a official state laboratory report from his folder and pressed it against the glass window.
“The DNA results came back two hours ago, Jeffrey,” Mark said clearly. “You are zero percent a biological match for Austin Vance. His biological father is actually Marcus Vance—Cynthia’s former boyfriend and Jeffrey’s former business competitor.”
The world inside Jeffrey’s head stopped spinning. It imploded into pure, pitch-black dark.
He stared at the paper pressed against the glass:
PATERNITY TEST RESULT: EXCLUSION OF BIOLOGICAL PATERNITY (0.00%)
“No…” Jeffrey whispered, his voice cracking into a pathetic, wheezing gasp. “No, no, no… I paid for his birth! I bought him designer clothes! I fed him three-milk cake while my own son…”
He stopped mid-sentence.
The horrific image of his real son, Liam—thin as a stick, dirty, shivering beneath a coffee table, crawling like a wounded animal—flashed across Jeffrey’s mind with the force of a freight train.
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He had starved his own flesh and blood, destroyed his wife, ruined his multi-million-dollar life, and committed federal crimes—all to raise another man’s child for a woman who had just sold him out to federal prosecutors for a lighter prison sentence.
Jeffrey slumped forward against the steel shelf, pressing his forehead against the cold metal, and wept like a broken, pathetic dog.
