Chapter 4 - The Sister in the Cell
The county jail visiting room was bleak and unyielding, separated by thick pane of scratch-resistant plexiglass. Lauren sat on the metal stool across from me, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, her hair unwashed and tangled. The glamorous, self-absorbed sister I had known was completely gone, replaced by a hollow shell of broken ambition.
She picked up the plastic telephone receiver with shaking hands. I picked up mine, holding it to my ear with stony silence.
"Sarah," Lauren choked out, pressing her hand against the glass. "Please. You have to tell the prosecutor that I didn't know Chloe would be there. You have to tell them I love her. I bought her that pink backpack for her birthday! I would never hurt Chloe!"
"You left a car running in an attached garage with the exhaust vents open, Lauren," I said, each word steady and devoid of mercy. "You knew the door seal was worn down. You knew how poison gas travels. You didn't care who breathed it as long as you got the key to the safe."
"He murdered Marcus!" Lauren shrieked into the receiver, her face turning crimson with rage. "Marcus killed himself because Daniel took every dime his parents left him! Marcus hung himself in our garage, Sarah! Do you know what it felt like to find the man you loved hanging from the rafters while your husband lived in a four-bedroom colonial with granite countertops paid for by stolen blood?!"
"Then you should have gone to the FBI!" I shouted back, startling the correctional officer stationed by the door. "You should have handed over the documents! You should have exposed him like a civilized human being! But you didn't do that, did you? You didn't want justice for Marcus. You wanted Marcus’s money back—with interest!"
Lauren flinched, looking down at the metal table. Her silence was a total confession. She had discovered the offshore accounts held over forty million dollars in cryptocurrency and Swiss reserves. She had convinced herself that taking the fortune was her rightful compensation for her grief.
"I timed it to the second," Lauren whispered, tears dripping onto the stainless steel. "The bus always pulled up at 3:23. Daniel would have been unconscious by 2:50. The garage door was supposed to vent automatically through the timer on the keypad after I left. Chloe was never supposed to see anything. When she called you at 3:17... that meant the bus let her off at 3:14. Three minutes. Three damn minutes destroyed everything."
"No, Lauren," I said, staring directly into her soul. "Your greed destroyed everything. Daniel is going to prison for twenty years for stealing that money. And you are going to prison for attempted murder. You threw your life away, and you almost murdered your own niece for paper."
"Sarah, please... don't abandon me," Lauren sobbed, pressing her forehead against the glass. "You're my only sister. Who's going to visit me? Who's going to help me get a lawyer?"
"Nobody," I said quietly.
I looked at the woman who had shared my childhood bedroom, who had held my hand when our parents passed away, and who had smiled in my kitchen while poisoning my family. There was no hatred left in me—only an overwhelming, liberating emptiness.
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"You said you didn't know Chloe would come home," I whispered. "Well, I know one thing for certain. Chloe and I are going home. But you are never coming near us again."
I hung up the plastic receiver, stood up from the stool, and walked out through the heavy security gates into the cool night air.
