Chapter 7 - The Interrogation
Two days after the incident, the autumn sun shone brightly through the tall windows of the county police precinct, but the sterile interview room where I sat felt frozen in time.
I wore a simple woolen sweater, my posture rigid, my eyes fixed on the two-way mirror across the table. Behind that glass sat Ethan—my husband of twelve years, the man who had cooked chicken and rice with a smile on his face while plotting our slow, agonizing demise.
The heavy steel door clicked open, and Detective Miller walked in, holding a fresh audio recorder and a thick stack of transcripts.
'Mrs. Vance, are you sure you want to be here for this?' Miller asked gently, pausing with his hand on the back of the metal chair. 'You don't have to watch. Our prosecutors have more than enough evidence to put him away for multiple counts of attempted murder, conspiracy, and property destruction.'
'I need to see him, Detective,' I said quietly, my voice steady. 'I need to look him in the eye and ask him why.'
Miller nodded slowly, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite me. He tapped a button on the control console, and a wall-mounted monitor flickered to life, showing live footage from the adjacent interrogation room.
Ethan sat at a scratched metal table, his hands cuffed to a bolted loop in the center. His hair was disheveled, the designer suit he had worn earlier replaced by an orange detention jumpsuit. He looked smaller, defeated, his shoulders hunched as he stared blankly at the tabletop.
Across from him sat two detectives, reading him his rights for the third time that morning.
'Mr. Vance, your co-conspirator, Vanessa Cole, has already given a full statement,' one of the detectives said, tossing a manila folder onto the table. 'She confessed to purchasing the sedatives online and helping coordinate the timeline for the gas leak. She claims it was all your idea.'
Ethan flinched at Vanessa's name. A bitter, humorless laugh escaped his lips. 'Of course she did. She always was a coward when things fell apart.'
'So you admit it?' the detective pressed leaningly. 'You planned to murder your wife and your ten-year-old son for insurance money?'
Ethan didn't answer immediately. He slowly lifted his head, his eyes scanning the empty room before locking directly onto the two-way mirror—right where he must have known, or suspected, I might be watching.
A shiver went down my spine. Through the audio feed, his voice came through the precinct speakers, low and devoid of any remorse.
'You don't understand what it's like,' Ethan muttered, staring straight into the glass. 'Being trapped in a life that went nowhere. Every day waking up to the same routine, the same bills, the same expectations. I needed a clean slate. I needed out.'
'And murdering your family was your solution?' the detective asked, his voice dripping with disgust.
'It wasn't personal,' Ethan said coldly, as if discussing a bad business merger. 'It was just business. The dose was calculated to be painless. They wouldn't have felt a thing.'
My fists clenched so tightly under the table that my fingernails dug into my palms, drawing sharp points of pain. Painless. He had looked at Caleb—our son, who used to draw pictures of us on the refrigerator—and called his murder a clean transaction.
'You're a monster, Ethan,' I whispered to the empty air of the observation room.
May you like
Detective Miller reached over, pressing a button that muted the feed. He looked at me with deep empathy. 'He's going away for a very long time, Clara. Consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Neither he nor Vanessa will ever see a dime of your assets.'
I let out a long, slow breath, feeling a massive weight slowly lift from my chest. The monster was caged. The trap had failed. Now, it was time to focus entirely on the future—on healing, on moving forward, and on showing Caleb that the world was still full of safety, light, and love.
