Chapter 12 - The Cell of the Smiling Viper
The high-security annex of the Trenton Psychiatric Facility smelled of industrial bleach and unwashed dread. Daniel walked through five successive hydraulic gates, his steel-toed boots echoing with finality against the green cinderblock walls. He wore a crisp charcoal wool coat, buttoned to the chin, hiding the Glock 19 nestled against his ribs.
In the center of the visitation tank, separated by four inches of bulletproof acrylic, sat Vanessa Whitmore.
She no longer looked like the radiant, ice-cold socialite who had commanded Manhattan boardrooms and thrown little girls from third-story balconies. Her once-flawless platinum hair was shaved to a bristly buzz cut; her silk designer slips had been replaced by a stiff, mustard-yellow jumpsuit stenciled with the letters *MAX-SEC*. But her eyes—those predatory, crystal-blue eyes—burned with a manic, electric luminosity.
When Daniel sat down on the bolted metal stool and picked up the heavy black receiver, Vanessa didn't wait. She pressed her face against the partition, a grotesque, broken smile stretching across her chapped lips.
"You look exhausted, Danny boy," Vanessa purred into the handset, her voice vibrating with gravelly malice. "Being a single father to a target must be dreadfully taxing on the cardiovascular system."
"Clara's tape," Daniel whispered, his voice dangerously low, vibrating with suppressed homicide. "Who sent it to my house, Vanessa?"
Vanessa tilted her head back and let out a harsh, barking laugh that caused the two armed correctional officers in the corner to grip their batons. "Oh, Danny. You really thought locking me in a cage would end the ballet? You thought you were the hero of a fairy tale because you caught a falling baby?"
She slammed both palms against the reinforced glass, rattling the frame. The guards took half a step forward, but Daniel raised a solitary hand, never breaking eye contact.
"You didn't catch her, Daniel," Vanessa whispered venomously, her breath fogging the glass. "You delayed the inevitable. I held her over that marble floor for three endless minutes waiting for the car to pull into the courtyard. Not because I hated her—Nora was a sweet, docile little brat. But because Julian promised me ten million clean dollars in Zurich if I made it look like a tragic domestic accident before Clara’s trust locked on her third birthday."
"Julian is dead," Daniel hissed, though the conviction in his chest was turning to ash. "I identified the wreckage of his yacht myself. His dental records—"
"A homeless heroin addict from the Bowery with Julian’s jawline and a mouth full of purchased crowns!" Vanessa scoffed, her eyes gleaming with triumphant cruelty. "Julian has been living five floors above you in the penthouse across Central Park for seven years, watching you play husband, watching you weep over Clara’s empty casket. Why do you think Clara became sick so fast? Who do you think supplied the thallium that I dissolved in her Earl Grey every morning?"
Daniel felt an infernal heat ignite behind his eyes. His hand clenched around the receiver so hard the plastic began to creak and craze. "You poisoned Clara."
"On Julian’s orders!" Vanessa shrieked, an ecstatic shudder wracking her thin frame. "And now... now that you turned Ashcroft Hall into a playground for bastard orphans, you’ve insulted his birthright. Did you really think he’d let you give away our family’s golden goose? Check your phone, Daniel. Check your security cameras. What time is it?"
Daniel's heart plummeted into a bottomless trench. He ripped his encrypted smartphone from his pocket.
The security alert from the Cape May safehouse was flashing crimson across the screen: *PERIMETER BREACH - WEST GATE. BIOMETRIC FAILURE. SENSOR OFFLINE.*
May you like
"He doesn't want you dead, Danny," Vanessa whispered, her tongue flicking against her upper teeth like a viper tasting the air. "He wants you to feel Nora's bones shatter in your hands. He wants you to catch her again... but from a whole lot higher."
Daniel slammed the receiver through the glass display tray, turned on his heel, and sprinted through the reinforced doors as the alarm sirens inside the prison began their deafening, apocalyptic wail.
