Chapter 8 - The Weight of Attempted Murder
The county jail holding facility in downtown San Francisco was a stark contrast to the luxury of South Beach or the quiet exclusivity of Lake Tahoe.
Lorraine Monroe sat on a bolted metal bench inside a holding cell, wearing standard-issue orange scrubs that swallowed her thin frame. Her hair was unstyled, her face pale and sunken without her daily cosmetics. The social club meetings, the country club lunches, the condescending remarks she loved to hurl at anyone she deemed beneath her—all of it had vanished into the damp, echoing concrete of the cell block.
Clank.
The heavy metal door of the visitation booth swung open.
A guard escorted Ethan inside, looking nearly as ruined as his mother. He sat down on the other side of the thick plexiglass partition and picked up the heavy black telephone receiver. Lorraine did the same, pressing it against her ear with trembling hands.
“Mom,” Ethan whispered, his voice cracking. “Mom, they’re taking everything. The house, the car, the bank accounts. Ashford’s lawyers are tearing us apart piece by piece. There’s nothing left.”
Lorraine stared at her son through the glass, her eyes hollow, the fierce arrogance that had defined her entire life completely extinguished.
“She’s William Ashford’s daughter,” Lorraine whispered, her voice a dry rattle. “We didn't know, Ethan... we didn't know...”
“I know we didn't know!” Ethan hissed back, slamming his palm against the glass divider in sudden, explosive frustration. “If you hadn't pushed her down those stairs—if you hadn't told her she wasn't worth twelve thousand dollars—we might have had a chance to fix it!”
“Me?!” Lorraine shrieked, her voice rising in defensive hysteria. “You were the one cheating on her with a gold-digging bimbo in Miami! You were the one who built a life on a foundation of lies while she quietly funded every promotion you ever bragged about!”
“Stop it!” Ethan yelled.
“Attention in visitation: keep your voices down or visits will be terminated,” the guard barked from the corner.
May you like
Ethan slumped forward, resting his forehead against the cold glass. The silence between mother and son was heavier than any words could express. They had played God with someone else’s life, believing their social standing and cruelty made them untouchable.
Now, they were trapped in the exact cage they had built for everyone else.
