Chapter 8 - The Confession of Caroline
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In Interrogation Room C, Caroline was completely broken.
She had spent six hours weeping into the tabletop, her wrists bruised from the transport cuffs, her designer persona entirely disintegrated.
When I entered the room with Detective Vance, Caroline lunged forward, pressing her forehead against the cold steel table.
“David! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Caroline sobbed hysterically. “The bookies in Joliet said they would burn the house down if I didn't pay the twenty thousand every month! Victoria told me the videos were harmless! She said people just wanted to watch old-fashioned discipline!”
“Harmless?” I asked, leaning over the table. “You pointed a high-velocity weapon at our daughter’s eyes. You locked her in a pitch-black box for thirty-six hours at a time.”
Caroline covered her face with her cuffed hands, shaking uncontrollably. “I was sick, David... I lost my mind! Let me see Lily! Let me hold her just once so I can ask for her forgiveness!”
“You will never lay eyes on my daughter again,” I said with terrifying, absolute finality.
Detective Vance slid a thick blue document across the table.
“This is an Emergency Petition for Absolute Dissolution of Marriage, coupled with a complete, unconditional surrender of all parental rights,” Detective Vance announced. “Under Illinois law, you are signing away any legal, physical, or emotional claim to Lily Miller forever.”
Caroline looked at the signature line, her hands trembling so violently she could barely hold the plastic pen.
“If you don't sign,” I whispered into her ear, “the federal prosecutor will charge you with ninety-two counts of aggravated interstate exploitation of a minor. You will spend forty years inside USP Hazelton.”
With ragged, desperate sobs, Caroline scribbled her signature onto the paper.
As the ink dried, the corporate secretary stamped the document with an official judicial seal.
May you like
The woman who had terrorized my child was legally, permanently erased from our lives.
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