Chapter 10 - The Reckoning of Derek
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Three weeks after the eviction, Derek sent seventeen desperate text messages to my administrative office begging for a private meeting.
His lawyers had informed him that the assault charges were being bundled with a sprawling federal indictment for wire fraud and money laundering.
He was looking at ten to fifteen years in federal custody.
Every single one of his wealthy acquaintances had blocked his phone number.
His fiancée had broken off their engagement, returned the leased ring, and moved to California.
I agreed to meet him at a small, weathered diner sitting on the industrial edge of the Norfolk waterfront.
It was the kind of place where tugboat captains and shipyard welders drank strong coffee out of thick ceramic mugs.
It was thousands of miles away from the country clubs Derek had spent his life frequenting.
I arrived ten minutes early and sat in a booth near the corner window, wearing civilian clothes and sipping black coffee.
At noon sharp, a beat-up silver sedan pulled into the gravel parking lot.
Derek stepped out, looking thin, haggard, and completely terrified.
He wore a cheap, oversized jacket to conceal the bulky electronic monitor strapped to his ankle.
He walked into the diner, his eyes darting nervously toward the workers at the counter, terrified that someone might recognize his face from the viral video.
He slid into the booth across from me, his hands shaking so violently he had to interlock his fingers on the table.
"Claire," he choked out, his voice cracked and hollow.
"Thank God you came."
I looked at him across the chipped formica table without speaking.
"You have to help me," he begged, leaning forward until his face was inches from mine.
"The federal prosecutors are trying to destroy me."
"They're saying I defrauded military charities."
"Claire, it was just accounting errors!"
"I was trying to set up a defense logistics consultancy, and the paperwork got mixed up!"
"You're a Captain, Claire!"
"You have connections in Washington!"
"You can talk to the JAG corps, you can talk to the U.S. Attorney!"
"Tell them it was a misunderstanding!"
"Tell them I didn't mean to hit you at the gala!"
I took a slow sip of my coffee, set the cup down cleanly, and leaned back against the vinyl seat.
"Did you mean to hit me, Derek?"
He flinched, pulling his hands back.
"I... I was angry!" he stammered.
"You humiliated me in front of everyone!"
"You always acted like you were better than us just because you joined the military!"
"Mom always said you were trying to make us look bad!"
"Mom made me do half of those things, Claire!"
"She controlled the accounts!"
"She told me to sign Dad’s name!"
I stared at him, watching him desperately throw his own mother to the wolves to save his miserable skin.
He had no loyalty, no spine, and no honor.
He was nothing more than an empty vessel filled with cowardice.
"Do you remember my nineteenth birthday, Derek?" I asked quietly.
He blinked, confused by the shift in conversation.
"What? No, that was twenty-five years ago!"
"You took my college fund money that Dad had saved in an envelope in his dresser," I told him, every word cold and steady.
"You bought a jet ski with it."
"And when Dad asked where the money went, you told him you saw me take it to buy drugs."
"That was the night Patricia packed my clothes into a black trash bag and pushed me out into the rain."
Derek swallowed hard, his eyes darting away toward the window.
"Claire, we were kids..."
"You were twenty-two years old, Derek."
"You knew exactly what you were doing."
"And you spent the next twenty-five years taking everything you could reach from anyone who loved you."
Derek’s pathetic expression suddenly hardened, the desperate mask slipping to reveal the snarling monster beneath.
"You think you've won, don't you?" he hissed, leaning across the table again.
"You think because you wear that little costume you're untouchable?"
"I will tell the press that you abused our sick father!"
"I will tell everyone you stole his estate while he was dying!"
"I will drag your precious military career through the mud until they kick you out!"
I smiled a small, tired smile and looked past Derek’s shoulder toward the adjacent booth.
Two men in dark suits who had been quietly eating pancakes folded their napkins and stood up.
They wore gold badges clipped to their belts: Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Derek Holloway," the lead NCIS special agent said, stepping up to the booth.
"You are under arrest for witness tampering, violation of federal bail conditions, and obstruction of justice."
Derek looked at the agents, then looked at me, his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish.
"You set me up," he whispered in absolute horror.
"No, Derek," I said, rising from the booth and picking up my jacket.
May you like
"You set yourself up twenty-five years ago."
"I just brought the audience."
