Chapter 7 - Behind Bars and Broken Illusions
Across town, at the county detention facility, the atmosphere was neither warm nor aromatic.
Beatrice sat on a cold stainless-steel bench inside an interrogation room, shivering violently. Her designer camel coat had been confiscated, along with her jewelry, her diamond earrings, and her phone. She was wearing a rough, oversized orange institutional sweatshirt that smelled faintly of industrial bleach. Her mascara was completely ruined, leaving dark, ghostly rings around her swollen eyes.
Across the metal table sat Detective Miller and Evelyn Reed. Between them lay a towering stack of bank records, receipt logs, and property inspection reports.
"I want my lawyer," Beatrice rasped for the twentieth time, her voice hoarse from hours of crying and screaming. "My father is Arthur Sterling. When he calms down, he is going to fire every single one of you. You are making the biggest mistake of your lives."
"Your father was the one who authorized this full forensic handover, Ms. Sterling," Detective Miller said, without looking up from his notes. "And as for your attorney, Mr. Harrison called an hour ago. He informed us that his retainer was paid by the Sterling Trust, not by you personally. Under instruction from the board chairman—your father—the trust has suspended all legal representation for unauthorized personal civil and criminal offenses."
Beatrice felt the cold floor tilt beneath her feet. "He... he dropped my lawyer?"
"You will be assigned a public defender at your arraignment tomorrow morning," Evelyn added, her tone clinical and devoid of sympathy. "Now, let’s address the second set of charges. Beyond the forty-two thousand dollars in charity fraud, we have received preliminary reports regarding your property management firm, Apex Living."
Evelyn slid a set of color photographs across the table. They showed rusted boilers, cracked foundational beams, exposed electrical wiring, and tenant petitions begging for heat in mid-December.
"Every winter for the past two years, tenants at Elmwood Arms filed emergency maintenance requests," Evelyn stated. "Every single request was personally marked 'deferred' by your login ID. Meanwhile, records show you used the property repair reserves to lease a private yacht in Miami last July."
"The tenants are late on their rent all the time!" Beatrice argued defensively, clutching her orange sleeves. "Why should I spend fifty thousand dollars on a new commercial boiler for people who can barely scrape together eight hundred bucks a month? They should be thankful they have a roof over their heads at all!"
Detective Miller shook his head slowly, closing his pen with a sharp snap. "Under city code, intentional deprivation of heating during freezing weather resulting in severe illness to vulnerable occupants—such as children and elderly residents—constitutes reckless endangerment. One of your tenants, an eight-year-old boy named Leo Jenkins, is currently being treated for severe bronchitis worsened by the conditions in your building."
"Leo...?" Beatrice remembered the scruffy name Martha had mentioned in aisle six. Her stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. "That woman’s grandson?"
"Yes," Miller said coldly. "The state attorney is reviewing the case right now. Between the foundation embezzlement and multiple counts of housing safety violations, you aren't looking at probation, Ms. Sterling. You are looking at a minimum sentence of four to seven years in state prison."
Beatrice’s hands flew to her mouth. The words echoed in her ears like tolling church bells: Four to seven years.
No hair salons. No seasonal trips to Paris. No VIP galas. No private drivers or champagne brunches. Just concrete walls, metal trays, and women who wouldn't care in the slightest whose daughter she was.
May you like
"I didn't mean for anyone to get sick!" she sobbed, breaking down onto the metal table, her forehead pressing against the cold steel. "I just wanted more money! I wanted to buy my own vacation home so I didn't have to ask my father for permission! I just wanted to be important!"
"You were already the daughter of a great man," Evelyn said softly, packing up her files. "You could have chosen to be great yourself. Instead, you chose to be cruel. And cruelty is the most expensive luxury in the world, Beatrice. It costs you everything in the end."
