Chapter 6 - The Confession Under Iron
I stopped three feet from the table, looking down at the woman who had worn black at my brother’s grave.
“You have diamond earrings on your ears, Rebecca,” I said, my voice dangerously calm, devoid of any shouting. “While my three-year-old niece was eating stale bread off my kitchen floor like a starving animal.”
Gregory Cole lunged to his feet, pulling a concealed snub-nosed revolver from his inner tuxedo pocket. “Back off, Moretti! You have no jurisdiction here!”
Before his finger could touch the trigger, Marco stepped in from the flank, drove his elbow into Gregory’s radial nerve, stripped the gun in a fluid combat motion, and slammed Gregory’s face flat onto the baccarat table, cracking the polished mahogany.
Gregory screamed as his arm was twisted behind his back and secured in heavy steel zip-ties.
Rebecca backed away against the velvet wall, hyperventilating, tears smearing her expensive eyeliner. “Thomas, please! Listen to me! It’s a misunderstanding! The kids were being difficult! I just put them in the lower room for a timeout!”
I pulled out my phone, tapped the screen, and set it on the table in front of her.
The phone played the audio recording of Leo’s trembling voice from the hospital bed:
“Uncle Thomas... Rebecca kicked me down the stairs when I asked for water for Maya. She said if I made a sound, she would make sure we went to sleep like Daddy...”
Rebecca began shaking violently, her knees giving out as she slid down the wall onto the floor.
“We have the toxicology report from Ethan’s body, Rebecca,” I whispered, leaning down until my eyes were inches from hers. “We found the arsenic in the kitchen cabinet. We have your signature on the Cayman wire transfers. And we have the forged will.”
“It was Gregory’s idea!” Rebecca shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at the pinned lawyer. “He told me Ethan was going to divorce me! He told me I would get nothing! He bought the arsenic! He told me to lock the kids away!”
Detective Marcus Stone and six uniformed Austin police officers stepped through the shattered doorway, holding stamped federal arrest warrants.
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“Thank you for the voluntary confession, Mrs. Moretti,” Detective Stone said with cold disgust. “The microphone on Mr. Moretti’s lapel has broadcast every word to the District Attorney’s recording deck.”
As the steel handcuffs clicked tightly around Rebecca’s wrists, she wailed in pathetic, hysterical terror, begging for mercy as she was dragged across the shattered champagne flutes and out into the flashing red and blue lights of the night.
