Chapter 9 - The Fall of the WhitmoresThe Cook County Correctional Center was cold, gray, and smelled of stale floor cleaner.
I sat behind the thick glass partition in the visiting room, waiting. A minute later, the heavy metal door opened, and Margaret Whitmore was led inside by a corrections officer.
She looked entirely unrecognizable. The pristine blonde hair was gone, replaced by stringy gray roots. Her tailored designer suits were replaced by a bright orange jumpsuit. The arrogant demeanor had withered away into bitter, hollow defeat.
She sat down across from me, picked up the plastic telephone, and slammed it against her ear. I picked up mine.
"Came to gloat?" she sneered, her voice raspy. "Enjoying playing CEO in my building?"
"It was never your building, Margaret," I said calmly. "And I didn't come to gloat. I came to give you something."
I slid a folded piece of paper against the glass partition.
Margaret squinted at it. "What is that?"
"It’s the official deed renaming the corporate headquarters," I replied. "The Whitmore Tower is officially gone. As of this morning, it is named the Eleanor Vance Memorial Foundation. It will provide free legal representation and housing for women fleeing corporate abuse and financial exploitation."
Margaret’s face twisted in pure agony. Her family name—the thing she had murdered and stolen for—was being erased from the city entirely.
"You stole everything from me!" she spat against the glass.
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"No," I corrected gently. "You stole everything from yourself the day you thought money made you invincible. You and Daniel will spend the rest of your lives in a federal prison. And every day you wake up in that cell, you will know that Eleanor Vance's daughter is using your fortune to heal the people you tried to destroy."
I stood up, smoothing down my blazer, and hung up the phone without waiting for her reply. As I walked out of the visiting room, I could hear her hysterical sobbing echoing down the concrete hallway behind me.
