Chapter 15 - The Mother’s Final Gambit
While Emily and Julian were rebuilding their lives, Margaret Whitmore had reached the outer limits of desperation.
Living in a derelict boarding house on the north side of the city, Margaret had sold the last piece of jewelry she had managed to conceal in her undergarments—a modest pearl brooch. With that three hundred dollars, she didn't buy food or warm clothes.
She bought a cheap burner phone and a bus ticket to the South Carolina State Penitentiary.
Through a crooked former bail bondsman who still owed the Whitmore family a favor, Margaret managed to arrange a non-recorded visitor pass under an assumed name to see Daniel.
When Daniel was brought into the booth, he looked like a ghost. He had lost twenty pounds; his eyes were sunken, and his hands shook continuously.
"Daniel! My boy!" Margaret wept against the partition.
Daniel looked up. When he saw his mother, his expression did not soften with filial affection. It contorted into an ugly, venomous grimace.
"What are you doing here, Mother?" Daniel rasped. "Did you come to ask me to cook you another birthday dinner?!"
"Daniel, don't speak to me like that!" Margaret hissed, leaning close to the glass. "Listen to me! We have one last card to play! The media!"
Daniel let out a bitter, raspy laugh. "The media? Mother, the media treats us like toxic waste! We’re convicted before the trial even starts!"
"Not if we change the narrative!" Margaret whispered frantically. "The press loves a victim! We go to the national tabloids! We tell them Alexander Carter used his billions to frame you because he wanted to seize Whitmore Development! We tell them Emily was cheating on you with Julian Vance from the beginning! We paint Emily as the calculating sociopath who lured you into debt to steal your family's heritage!"
Daniel stared at his mother. For a brief second, his desperate, sick mind considered the lie.
"Do you really think anyone will believe that?" Daniel asked, his voice shaking.
"They will believe whatever causes the biggest scandal!" Margaret urged, her eyes wide with manic fervor. "I contacted a reporter from *The National Inquirer* yesterday! They offered fifty thousand dollars for an exclusive tell-all interview with me! If we leak manufactured diary entries from you showing you were the abused spouse, we can create reasonable doubt! We can force Alexander Carter into an out-of-court settlement just to protect his daughter's reputation!"
Daniel’s hands clenched into fists.
The same arrogance, the same toxic delusion that had brought him to this prison cell was whispering in his ear once more.
"Can you get the reporter into the jail?" Daniel whispered.
"I already did," Margaret smiled, her yellowed teeth showing through smeared lipstick. "He’s waiting outside right now under a visitor badge. You sign the release form, Daniel. We tear that little Carter girl down from her pedestal."
Daniel picked up the pen sitting beside the clipboard on his table.
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He didn't know that every single word uttered in that visiting booth was being transmitted directly through a federal wiretap authorized by Judge Vance three days earlier.
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