Chapter 23
CHAPTER 24: The Iron Door
The news broke on a Tuesday afternoon.
We were in the middle of a deposition prep for Marcus's case when the paralegal knocked on the glass door and pointed to the television in the lobby.
Sarah put her pen down. We walked out to watch.
The news anchor’s face was grave.
"...formal sentencing of Richard Vance concluded this morning. The former CEO has been sentenced to twenty-two years in federal prison without the possibility of parole."
The screen flashed to a clip of Vance being led out of a different courthouse. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit. His hair, usually perfectly coiffed, was a messy, graying halo. He looked small. He looked ordinary. He looked like an old man who had finally run out of places to hide.
The lobby was dead silent.
I looked at Sarah. I expected a smile. I expected relief, or perhaps a sharp comment.
Instead, she just stared at the screen, her expression unreadable. She watched Vance being pushed into the back of an armored transport van. The heavy iron doors slammed shut, cutting him off from the world.
"Twenty-two years," I murmured. "He'll die in there."
Sarah didn't celebrate. She didn't gloat.
She just took a deep breath, as if exhaling the last trace of poisoned air she had carried in her lungs for years.
"Good," she said softly.
She picked up the remote and clicked the television off. The screen faded to black, plunging the lobby back into the quiet hum of a working law firm.
She turned to me, her eyes bright and focused.
"We have a deposition at four," she said, already walking back toward her office. "Let's get back to work."
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Click. Clack. Click. Clack.
Vance was history. She was the future.
