Chapter 5 - Out on Bail
Three days after his arrest, a high-interest bail bondsman and a bottom-tier defense attorney managed to secure Richard’s temporary release on a two-million-dollar bond, secured against the equity of his remaining frozen properties. The federal court had stripped him of his passport, frozen his personal checking accounts, and slapped him with an ankle monitor that tracked his every movement within a ten-mile radius.
Desperate, unshaven, and wearing the same rumpled linen shirt he had been arrested in, Richard didn't go to a hotel. He took a taxi directly to the downtown office of my corporate attorney, where I was sitting at the end of a long mahogany conference table, signing the final paperwork for our divorce and the total liquidation of our joint assets.
When the reception doors flew open, my security guard immediately stepped forward, but I raised my hand, signaling him to let Richard enter.
He looked like a man who had been dragged through hell. His skin was gray, his eyes were bloodshot from sleeplessness and weeping, and his hands trembled violently as he gripped the edge of the conference table.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered, his voice cracking as tears spilled down his cheeks. He dropped to his knees on the carpet, looking up at me with a desperate, agonizing plea for sympathy. "Elena, why didn't you call the resort? Why didn't you call the front desk? If I had known... if I had just known Leo was sick, I would have flown back on the first private jet! How could you let our son die without telling me?!"
I slowly placed my pen onto the legal pad. I looked down at him, feeling no pity, no anger, only the cold, unshakeable certainty of justice.
"I called you forty-seven times, Richard," I said, my voice eerily calm and steady. "I called your cell. I called Chloe’s cell. I called the marina where your yacht was docked. I even sent an urgent email flagged with high importance to your personal account with the subject line: LEO IN ICU - CRITICAL. You set an automated filter to delete my emails without reading them."
"I didn't know!" he sobbed, burying his face against the edge of the table. "I swear to God I didn't know!"
I reached into my handbag, pulled out my cell phone, and opened my photo gallery. I turned the screen toward his face. On it was a screenshot of the text message he had sent me at 4:12 AM on the night our son's organs began to shut down.
May you like
I read his own words aloud to him, letting them drop like stones into the quiet room: "Stop weaponizing your paranoia to ruin my peace, Elena. I am on an off-grid wellness retreat to recharge. Do not reach out for the next fourteen days."
"The nurse recorded time of death exactly twelve minutes after you hit send on that message," I told him, standing up from my chair and gathering my coat. "You didn't want your peace ruined, Richard. So I made sure it never will be again. Sign the divorce papers, or my lawyer will file them by default when you go to prison."
