Chapter 8 - Cracks in the FacadeAt two o'clock that afternoon, inside the central precinct interrogation room downtown, the united front between Evan and Marissa completely shattered.

Separated into two different rooms with two different sets of federal and state investigators, the couple who had spent months plotting the theft of my mother’s home turned on each other with feral, panicked desperation.

In Interrogation Room A, Marissa was hysterically crying, her makeup ruined, her expensive designer clothes rumpled.

“It was Evan’s idea!” Marissa shrieked at Prosecutor Sarah Jenkins, banging her manicured nails on the metal table. “He told me his mother was going to die anyway! He said she had no use for a four-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar house! He was the one who contacted Greg Miller!”

“Mrs. Vance,” Prosecutor Jenkins replied coldly, sliding a recorded wiretap transcript across the table. “We have three recorded phone calls between your personal phone and Greg Miller’s office discussing the ten-thousand-dollar cash bribe. And your signature is listed as the primary witness on the forged deed.”

“I was just doing what my husband asked!” Marissa wailed. “I didn't know it was illegal! I thought it was just estate planning!”

Meanwhile, in Interrogation Room B, Evan sat slumped in his chair, his head in his hands, staring at the floor in utter defeat.

Daniel and I stood behind the two-way mirror in the observation room, watching my brother through the glass.

“He tried to blame you, Hannah,” Prosecutor Jenkins said, stepping into the observation room. “He told the agents that you abandoned your mother and that he was forced to sell the house to cover her medical debts.”

“My mother’s medical debts were fully covered by Medicare and Dad’s school district pension plan,” I said flatly. “There were no unpaid bills.”

“We know,” Jenkins nodded. “We pulled her medical ledger. Every single hospital bill was paid in full three weeks ago by her pension insurance. Evan and Marissa didn't spend a single cent on her care. They transferred the entire four hundred fifty thousand dollars into a personal trading account to pay off Evan’s illegal sports gambling debts.”

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I looked at my brother through the mirror—the boy I had grown up with, the son my father had trusted, the man who had left his own mother to freeze under a concrete bridge so he could pay off a bookie and buy a luxury high-rise condo.

“Let the law handle him, Hannah,” Daniel whispered, taking my hand. “He chose his path.”