12. Sufficient Rope
Chapter twelve
Sufficient Rope
— Simon —
Istared across the metal table at the public defender, ignoring the headache throbbing behind my eyes.
The harsh fluorescent lights of the interrogation room buzzed relentlessly overhead.
He looked pathetic. A cheap, off-the-rack polyester suit and tired eyes behind smudged glasses.
My own tailored Italian wool felt foreign and loose without the silk tie and leather belt they had stripped from me during booking.
I shifted my weight on the rigid metal chair. The motion dragged the steel handcuffs across my wrists, the metal biting into my bare skin. I ignored the chafing, leaning forward until the short chain snapped taut.
“You aren’t listening,” I snapped, keeping my tone clipped and authoritative. “File a motion to separate the charges immediately. Nina orchestrated the entire thing. She was insanely jealous of Audrey. I thought she was just buying vitamin supplements for her gym recovery.”
The public defender dragged a blue pen across a yellow legal pad. The dry, scratching sound made the pulsing in my temples flare. “Mr. Prescott, blaming the mistress when there’s explicit video evidence of—”
“The video proves infidelity, not attempted murder,” I interrupted, projecting the same boardroom dominance I used on my Vanguard clients. “She sourced the drugs off the black market herself. I had zero knowledge of it.”
The heavy iron door clicked and swung inward, letting a draft into the cramped space.
The lead detective walked in, bringing the sour stench of old coffee and sweat with him.
Carrying a thick manila folder under one arm and a silver laptop in his free hand, he didn’t pull out a chair.
He simply stood over the metal table, staring down at me like I was a pest waiting to be exterminated.
He dropped the folder. It hit the steel surface with a sharp, echoing slap.
I refused to let him see me squirm. I was the smartest person in this room.
My digital tracks were thoroughly wiped.
I had used encrypted messaging apps and anonymous cryptocurrency wallets to secure the pills.
Deleting the software had turned me into a digital ghost, leaving no paper trail for these local cops to follow.
The physical possession of the drugs was the only vulnerability, and I could easily pin that on Nina.
I adjusted my posture, fighting the restrictive bite of the metal cuffs, and looked him dead in the eye. “You have to listen to me. Nina bought those pills. I thought they were just dietary supplements for her workouts.”
The detective didn’t blink. He reached out and flipped the laptop screen open, the hinge groaning quietly.
“Save it, Simon,” the detective said. “We dumped your phone the second you were booked. Our forensic extraction tools bypassed your deleted apps in ten minutes.”
A sudden prickle of sweat broke out on my neck. Impossible. Wiping the app wiped the data. That was the entire point of the encryption.
I jerked my hands upward, the steel chain catching violently against the table loop and bruising my wrists. “There’s nothing on my phone!”
The detective tapped the keyboard once. “We recovered the crypto hashes and the decrypted chat logs between you and the supplier. You paid for the inhibitors.”
The detective flipped the manila folder open. He slid a thick stack of printouts across the metal table, stopping it inches from my handcuffed wrists.
I stared down. Stark black ink bled against the crisp white pages. Line after line of decrypted chat logs sat clearly visible. Timestamps, wallet addresses, and negotiated prices for the neuromuscular blockers were laid out in perfect chronological order.
My chest tightened until I couldn’t draw a full breath, the fine cotton of my dress shirt suddenly feeling damp and suffocating. The encryption hadn’t hidden a thing; it had preserved a flawless, time-stamped confession.
Before I could pull my eyes away from the paper, the detective reached over the laptop keyboard and pressed a button.
A tinny, digitized recording echoed off the windowless walls.
“The inhibitor knocks her completely out. We have the whole house to ourselves.” My own voice filled the cramped room, sounding casual and cruel.
The detective tapped a key, skipping the audio forward to another timestamp.
“I arranged the transport for Monday morning.”
The audio cut out. The silence that followed was crushing. I sagged against the hard back of the metal chair. The headache pulsing behind my eyes sharpened to a blinding throb. Audrey hadn’t just survived. She had lain there and silently let me hand her all the rope she needed to hang me.
“That’s conspiracy and aggravated assault, Simon,” the detective said, his voice entirely flat. “You’re looking at decades.”
Across the table, the public defender dropped his pen and flipped the cover of his legal pad shut with a sharp, dismissive snap. He didn’t even look at the detective.
“Don’t say another word, Simon,” the lawyer muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “We need to beg the DA for a plea deal.”
A plea deal. The phrase made my throat constrict.
I needed a real defense team, the kind of ruthless, expensive sharks Lawrence kept on retainer.
But Lawrence had executed the injunction exactly as Audrey instructed.
Every account, every joint asset, every dollar I had ever touched was frozen behind a judicial order. I was entirely bankrupt.
I stared blankly at the metal table, the steel cuffs grinding against my skin.
“She took everything,” I whispered. “She took all my money.”
— Nina —
The iron cell door shut with a deafening clang, sealing me inside the precinct basement.
I stood near the bars, shivering in a stiff, oversized orange jumpsuit.
They had confiscated my emerald silk dress during booking.
They had taken my designer heels, leaving me standing in thin paper slippers on the concrete floor.
Now, the scratchy polyester fabric chafed my shoulders, and the air around me carried the distinct, nauseating reek of industrial bleach mixed with stale urine.
A female guard stopped on the other side of the iron grate, her boots squeaking on the linoleum. She shoved a plastic telephone receiver through the narrow gap between the bars.
“You get one call,” she grunted, her expression blank. “Make it quick.”
I snatched the receiver, my fingers curling tightly around the hard plastic. I needed out of this filthy cage before the socialite gossip mill caught wind of the arrest. After reaching through the bars to punch the digits into the guard’s base unit, I brought the receiver to my ear.
“Come on, Chloe, pick up,” I muttered to myself, listening to the static hiss of the ringing line.
A sharp rush of fear gripped me, my pulse hammering loudly against the dead air on the line.
Chloe was the wealthiest woman in my social circle.
She hosted the galas. She dictated the country club seating charts.
She had the liquid funds to post bail immediately and the connections to bury this ugly scandal before the evening news cycle could run with it.
The ringing stopped. A breathless click sounded over the line.
“Chloe? Thank God,” I rushed out, forcing a desperate but steady tone. “Listen, I’m at the downtown precinct. I need you to wire bail money right now.”
I expected a gasp of sympathy. I expected her to immediately ask which defense lawyer to dispatch to the station. Instead, a flat, judgmental silence hung over the line. I pressed the cold receiver harder against my ear, gripping the plastic shell until my knuckles ached.
“Are you insane?” Chloe finally asked, her voice stripped of its usual melodic cheer. “I’m not giving you a dime, Nina.”
I swallowed hard, fighting to keep the sudden edge of desperation out of my voice before I spoke again.
I squeezed the phone, refusing to accept her tone.
She just didn’t understand the context of what had happened in that dining room.
She just needed me to explain how ridiculously out of proportion this whole ordeal was.
“It’s a mistake!” I insisted, keeping my voice low so the guard wouldn’t hear me panicking. “Audrey lost her mind and called the cops on me. It’s a total misunderstanding.”
I waited for the validation. For months, over expensive lunches, Chloe had listened to me complain about Audrey’s tragic, pathetic decline. She was supposed to take my side.
Instead, a short, bitter laugh crackled through the earpiece.
“The police blotter is public, Nina,” Chloe spat, her voice echoing tinny and sharp through the receiver. “And Lawrence Stanton’s firm doesn’t keep secrets from the board. Everyone knows you two were arrested for trying to poison Audrey. You’re a sociopathic monster.”
A sharp click severed the connection.
A continuous, flat buzz replaced Chloe’s voice. I gripped the plastic shell, pressing it so hard against my ear that the rigid edge dug painfully into my skin.
“Chloe, wait, please—” I begged into the dead line, my voice cracking.
The female guard stepped closer to the iron grate. She tapped a metal key ring against the bars. The harsh scrape rang in my ears, cutting through the flat buzz.
“Call is over,” the guard said, extending an open hand through the gap. “Hand the phone back.”
I stared at the receiver in my trembling hand.
That piece of plastic was my last remaining tether to the outside world.
To the galas, the designer fittings, the status I had sacrificed everything to build.
Lowering the phone from my ear, I realized how thoroughly Audrey had dismantled my life in a single afternoon.
She hadn’t just called the police. She had scorched the earth, making sure every single person I knew would turn their back on me.
For months, I had treated Audrey like a helpless infant.
I had sat at her dining table, drunk her scotch, and laughed at her physical decline.
As I stood in a filthy precinct basement in a scratchy orange uniform, the reality of what she’d done finally sank in.
She had let me gloat, silently gathering every piece of ammunition she needed to destroy me.
I numbly slid the receiver through the iron bars, surrendering it to the guard. My hands were now entirely empty.
“She planned the whole thing,” I whispered, staring blindly at the concrete wall opposite my cell. “She let us walk right into a trap.”
I turned away from the heavy iron door, my paper slippers shuffling over the dirty linoleum. My trembling legs finally gave out, and I sagged onto the thin mattress of the metal cot bolted to the wall. The rigid steel edge bit into the back of my thighs.
Hot tears welled in my eyes and spilled rapidly down my cheeks. I had traded my lifelong best friend for a man currently sitting down the hall in an interrogation room, likely trying to save his own skin by blaming the poisoning on me. I was bankrupt, isolated, and trapped.
The guard coiled the telephone cord and clipped the receiver to her belt.
“Sit down and keep quiet until processing calls you.”
I pulled my knees tight to my chest, burying my face in the stiff fabric of the jumpsuit. The metal cot groaned beneath my weight. I rocked slightly, desperate for any physical sensation to distract from the suffocating stench of bleach stinging my nostrils.
“He has to fix this. He promised me.”
My voice cracked as the words left me, sounding pathetic and weak in the empty cell. The steady drip of a leaky pipe echoed somewhere down the cell block. I waited in the silence, desperate for any sign of movement.
A distant, rhythmic sound began to build over the ambient noise.
The synchronized thud of boots striking the linoleum echoed down the hall.
It wasn’t the squeak of the female guard’s rubber soles, but the rigid march of police officers.
I lifted my head, wiping a wet streak from my cheek with the back of my hand.
Two imposing shadows stretched across the cinderblock wall in the corridor. Between them walked a third figure.
Simon stepped into the harsh fluorescent light directly outside my cage. He was handcuffed and stripped of his silk tie, his tailored shirt wrinkled. I scrambled off the thin mattress. My paper slippers skidded on the dusty floor, but I caught myself, lunging forward across the small space.
I clamped my bare hands around the vertical iron bars. The painted metal was abrasive against my palms, biting into my skin as I squeezed until my knuckles cramped.
“Simon! Look at me! You did this to me!”
My voice bounced off the cinderblock walls, a shrill, hysterical shriek. I waited for his eyes to dart toward me.
I waited for that smooth, patronizing voice to reassure me that he had a brilliant plan to bail us out. He didn’t turn his head. He didn’t turn his head. He stared rigidly at the exit doors at the end of the hall, his expression unreadable.
“Keep walking, Prescott. Ignore her,” the officer on his right grunted, giving Simon a rough shove forward.
The casual dismissal shattered the last of my delusions.
Simon wasn’t just following orders; he was punishing me with his silence.
By refusing to even look at me, he proved just how insignificant I truly was to him.
I was never his partner. I was a disposable tool he used to get rid of his wife, and now that the tool was broken, he was discarding it entirely. We were both going to rot behind bars.
“You coward! Tell them it was your idea!”
The frantic accusation tore from me, burning the back of my throat as the echo died in the corridor. Simon continued marching down the hall in complete silence. He disappeared around the corner, taking the thudding footsteps with him. I was entirely alone.
My locked fingers cramped painfully, losing their grip. As my palms slid down the abrasive iron, red friction marks streaked across my skin until my knees finally buckled, sending me crashing down.
I collapsed onto the hard concrete, the wet, choking sound of my own sobs echoing through the empty basement.