Chapter 19 - The Interrogation Room
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The very first joint meeting with Graham and Constance took place in a bleak, heavily guarded police interrogation room exactly six days after the attack.
I had firmly insisted on going in person, despite the medical advice. Damon told me it was a bad idea. Sloane told me it might be emotionally devastating. The doctor bluntly told me I should not push my recovering body too hard. All of them were absolutely right.
I went anyway. I needed to look them in the eye.
The interrogation room smelled distinctly of cheap bleach, old stale coffee, and sour, sweating fear. Harsh fluorescent lights buzzed annoyingly overhead. The heavy metal table bolted between us had deep scratches along the surface, tiny marks left by hundreds of desperate people who had sat in those exact chairs and realized far too late that the truth had completely stopped belonging to them.
Constance sat rigidly in an oversized, bright orange county jail uniform, but somehow, she still desperately tried to project an air of superiority. Her silver hair had been hastily brushed into place. Her posture was ramrod straight. Her chin was lifted in defiance. She looked as though she firmly believed she was attending a hostile corporate board meeting rather than facing felony charges that would undeniably send her to a federal prison for the rest of her natural life.
Graham sat beside her, looking like a shattered shell of a man. He was unshaven, his skin pale and clammy. He had entirely lost the clean, polished, millionaire appearance that had once made strangers instantly assume he was successful. Without the tailored suit, the unearned confidence, the protective family name, and the expensive Rolex watch, he looked exactly like what he had always been beneath the surface.
A pathetic coward.
Their incredibly expensive defense attorney sat across from Sloane, appearing professionally calm in a perfectly tailored gray suit. He opened a sleek leather briefcase and immediately began talking smoothly about "unfortunate misunderstandings," "severe emotional distress," "private family matters," and his clients' deep desire to "amicably resolve the situation without turning it into an ugly, public media spectacle."
I listened to him spin his web of lies for five minutes. Then, I waited.
Finally, Graham couldn't handle the silence anymore. He looked across the metal table at me, tears welling in his red eyes.
“Evelyn,” he pleaded softly, his voice trembling. “I swear to God, I never wanted you dead. I loved you.”
The sentence was so profoundly, hilariously absurd that for a brief moment, I almost admired his sociopathic ability to say it out loud without choking on his own tongue.
“You literally stood there and watched me collapse on the floor, Graham,” I replied, my voice completely devoid of emotion.
“I panicked! I froze! It was a medical emergency!”
“You deliberately removed my emergency epinephrine injector from my purse.”
“I did not remove it! I didn't know where it was!”
“You forged my signature to drastically increase the life insurance policy.”
“I didn't know what my mother was planning with the food, Evelyn! I swear!”
Constance turned toward him sharply, her face twisting with disgust at his rapid betrayal.
“Do not be stupid, Graham. Shut your mouth,” Constance snapped.
The room went instantly, violently quiet. Graham’s face crumpled.
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Sloane Kim calmly reached into her briefcase and placed a sleek digital tablet directly in the center of the metal table.
“Before anyone in this room says anything else,” Sloane announced, her voice ringing with absolute, lethal authority, “we should review some of the newly recovered evidence.”
