Chapter 10 - Chloe’s Capture and Interrogation
While Marcus remained isolated in his maximum-security cell refusing to speak without an attorney present, Chloe’s legal situation was rapidly disintegrating under the combined weight of federal fraud charges and state attempted murder indictments. Unlike Marcus, who possessed the arrogant, pathological discipline of a seasoned sociopath, Chloe was a superficial social climber whose psychological resilience completely evaporated the moment she was stripped of her designer wardrobes and placed into the harsh, fluorescent reality of a police interrogation room.
On Thursday morning, forty-eight hours after her arrest at the penthouse, Vance and Elena were invited by Detective Miller and Assistant District Attorney Evelyn Vance to observe Chloe’s formal proffer interrogation through the one-way mirror of Interrogation Room B at the Central Precinct.
Chloe sat at the stainless-steel table wearing a drab orange county jail jumpsuit, her hair unwashed and disheveled, her hands trembling violently around a styrofoam cup of lukewarm water. Beside her sat her court-appointed public defender—a stressed, overworked lawyer who had already reviewed the fifty-two audio recordings and the financial wire logs, and had bluntly informed his client that she was facing a mandatory thirty-year federal sentence unless she cooperated immediately.
“Ms. Chloe,” ADA Evelyn Vance began, turning on the digital recording apparatus on the table and opening a thick legal binder. “We are here today under the strict parameters of a preliminary proffer agreement. If you provide full, truthful, and verifiable testimony regarding the events leading up to the attempted murder of Clara Sterling on Sunday night, the State is prepared to drop the charge of Attempted First-Degree Murder and allow you to plead guilty to the lesser offenses of Accessory After the Fact and Federal Wire Fraud, carrying a recommended sentence of eight to twelve years. Do you understand?”
Chloe looked at her public defender, who nodded emphatically. She burst into tears, her voice cracking into a hysterical, high-pitched wail that piped clearly into our observation room.
“I understand! I’ll tell you everything! Just please don't put me in a maximum-security prison with violent criminals!” Chloe sobbed, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jumpsuit. “It was all Marcus! He planned the whole thing from the very beginning! He told me that Clara’s trust fund was worth twelve million dollars, but that we couldn't access the principal balance as long as she was alive and legally competent!”
“When did the specific plan to terminate Clara Sterling’s life originate?” Detective Miller asked, leaning forward across the table with her pen poised over her notepad.
“Three months ago, right after her twenty-week ultrasound!” Chloe confessed, her words spilling out in a rapid, desperate torrent to save herself. “Marcus found out she was having a girl, and he found out about the mandatory trust audit that happens when an heir is born. He panicked! He brought home a bottle of liquid veterinary sedative from a contact he had at a research lab, and he started putting five drops of it into her morning orange juice every single day so she would look dizzy, paranoid, and crazy whenever our friends came over for dinner!”
In the observation room, I stood next to Vance, my nails digging into the palms of my hands until they bled. To hear her casually admit that the man I slept next to had been actively poisoning my unborn baby’s bloodstream for ninety days made my vision swim with red, murderous fury.
“And what was the specific objective on Sunday night?” ADA Vance pressed coldly.
“We were supposed to force her to sign a medical power of attorney and an emergency custody waiver before we staged the fall!” Chloe admitted, her voice dropping into a guilty whisper. “Marcus printed the legal forms at his office. He told me that if we broke her wrist or threatened to inject her with a high-dose paralytic, she would sign the papers to save the baby. But when we cornered her on the balcony, she pulled out that little black transmitter watch and told us she had been recording us for weeks!”
Chloe looked up, her bloodshot eyes wide with the memory of that night. “Marcus went completely crazy when he saw the recording light! He slammed her arm against the railing to make her drop it, but she threw it over the edge into the alley! That’s when he screamed that the court would believe him over her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her straight through the glass railing! I swear to God I didn't push her! I just stood there!”
“But you didn't call 911 after you watched a pregnant woman fall twenty stories, did you, Ms. Chloe?” Detective Miller asked sharply. “You went down to the lobby and lied to the police, claiming she jumped because she was mentally ill.”
“Marcus told me to!” Chloe wailed, burying her face in her hands. “He said if I didn't back up his story, he would tell the feds that I was the sole mastermind behind the Apex Consulting bank fraud! I was terrified of him!”
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ADA Evelyn Vance closed her evidence binder with a sharp, definitive snap that made Chloe flinch in her seat. She looked across the table at the weeping accomplice with an expression of profound judicial contempt.
“Your confession is fully recorded and accepted into the record, Ms. Chloe,” the ADA said coldly. “You will testify before the grand jury tomorrow morning, and you will repeat every single word of this statement in open court during Marcus Sterling’s murder trial. Guard, take the prisoner back to her cell.”
