Lieutenant Rodriguez looked down at Laura, his expression filled with grim pity. "Ma'am, do you have anything to say regarding these allegations? We have a petition for an emergency involuntary psychiatric hold signed by a board-certified physician right here."
David looked down at Laura, his face showing a subtle, fleeting glint of victory—a quiet, arrogant smirk hidden behind his dramatic sorrow. He thought it was over. He thought the legal system was about to sweep his wife away into a private locked ward while he took control of twelve million dollars.
Laura looked up from the stainless steel table. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She slowly tilted her head, looking at David’s wrist protruding from his expensive sleeve.
"David," Laura said gently, her voice ringing clear through the sterile room. "That's a very nice watch. Is that the Patek Philippe Grandcomplications you bought on Tuesday?"
David’s smirk instantly vanished. His arm twitched, instinctively pulling his cuff down over his wrist, but it was too late.
"What does my watch have to do with anything?" David stammered, his emotional performance faltering for a split second before he tried to regain his footing. "Lieutenant, look at her! She’s deflecting! She’s totally irrational!"
"It costs one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars," Laura said calmly, looking directly at Lieutenant Rodriguez. "Purchased at Mayors Jewelers in Naples. Paid for via wire transfer from a commercial account ending in numbers four-zero-nine-two."
Lieutenant Rodriguez frowned, glancing down at the paperwork in his hand. "What account is that?"
"Account four-zero-nine-two isn't a Jennings Properties business account," Laura explained, leaning as far forward as her hand shackles would allow. "It’s the primary estate account left by my father, Judge Thomas Mercer. An account that required two signatures for any transaction over ten thousand dollars: my signature, and the signature of my father’s court-appointed co-trustee."
"Which is David," Victoria Vance interjected quickly, stepping forward with her lawyerly composure fully restored. "As her legal spouse and co-trustee, Mr. Jennings exercised his legal fiduciary discretion to secure assets during his wife's mental episode—"
"My father died six months ago," Laura interrupted, her voice dropping an octave, turning cold as liquid nitrogen. "So tell me, Victoria... how did David sign my father's signature on a wire transfer authorization dated three days ago?"
A heavy, suffocating silence dropped over the interrogation room.
David’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Eleanor’s hand tightened so hard around her cashmere shawl that her knuckles turned ghost-white.
"That... that was an administrative pre-authorization filed before his death," Victoria lied, her voice losing its polished rhythm.
"My father didn't sign a pre-authorization," Laura said softly. "Because six months ago, my father didn't die of a sudden, unexpected heart attack like you told the coroner, Eleanor."
Eleanor’s head snapped toward Laura, her eyes widening in genuine, raw terror. "What are you talking about, you ungrateful girl?"
"I had my father's body exhumed under a federal court order seventy-two hours ago," Laura said, keeping her eyes locked onto Eleanor's trembling face. "The forensic toxicology report came back yesterday morning. High concentrations of thallium sulfate. Heavy metal poisoning. The exact same compound found in the vintage rat poison stored in the storm cellar of your Naples estate."
The air in the interrogation room seemed to vanish instantly.
Lieutenant Rodriguez’s eyes narrowed. He looked from Laura’s unwavering, stone-cold glare to Eleanor Jennings, whose face had gone completely grey, like ashes left in a cold fireplace.
"Lieutenant," David stammered, his voice climbing an octave, sweat suddenly glistening along his hairline. "She's... she's lying! She's completely insane! You can't listen to this delusional fairy tale!"
"If I'm lying, David," Laura said, her voice smooth and precise, "then why are two Federal Agents currently standing right outside that two-way mirror?"
As if on cue, the heavy door of Interrogation Room B clicked open once more.
Two men in tailored charcoal suits stepped inside. The lead man, Special Agent Vance Miller from the FBI’s Financial Crimes and Public Corruption Task Force, held up a leather badge holder. Behind him stood Assistant United States Attorney Sarah Jenkins, holding a stack of federal arrest warrants.