Chapter 14 - The Fall of the Golden Couple
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Twenty minutes later, down on the rain-slicked pavement of Park Avenue, a crowd of two hundred society reporters, financial news crews, and evening onlookers stood gathered behind police barricades, their camera lights blazing against the limestone entrance of the tower.
Originally, those cameras had been invited by Diana’s publicist at eight o'clock to capture the first official photographs of Manhattan’s "Golden Couple" stepping out after our engagement toast.
They got their photographs.
First out of the lobby doors came Viktor Kael on a stretcher under heavy federal guard, followed by Julian Vance in a torn Brioni suit with his hands cuffed behind his back, hiding his bruised jaw behind his shoulder as reporters shouted questions about Ellison Global and the SEC.
And ten seconds behind Julian walked Diana Caldwell.
Wrapped in an oversized NYPD evidence blanket over her ruined silver couture gown, her blonde hair tangled by the rooftop wind and her bare wrists locked in steel handcuffs, Diana sobbed as Detective Lieutenant Miller guided her straight into the back of a waiting police cruiser.
Up on the eightieth floor, I stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass window with a glass of bottled water in my hand, watching the red and blue police lights pull away down Park Avenue.
Behind me, the catering crew had already stripped the soiled white damask tablecloth off the forty-foot mahogany dining table, and forensics technicians had finished dusting the wooden crossbeam beneath Diana’s chair—confirming that both Diana’s and Viktor Kael’s latent thumbprints were sealed inside the adhesive layer of the black tactical tape.
With the audio recording recovered from Julian’s own backup cache on the titanium drive, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York had already called my general counsel to confirm that neither Julian Vance nor Diana Caldwell would ever see the outside of a federal penitentiary before they were eighty years old. And by 9:01 AM Monday morning, Caldwell Capital Partners would be placed into full federal liquidation.
As the last forensics van cleared the service elevator, the penthouse finally grew quiet.
I turned away from the city lights and walked back through the dining room toward the warm family living quarters in the south wing, where I had asked Rosa to wait for me before going downstairs.
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Sitting on the plush cream velvet sofa near the fireplace was Rosa, holding a mug of chamomile tea while three-year-old Lily lay curled up fast asleep beside her, a cashmere throw blanket tucked up to her chin and her little pink-socked feet sticking out the bottom.
Even in her sleep, Lily’s small right hand was clamped tightly around the frayed ear of Barnaby, her one-eyed stuffed rabbit.
