Chapter 5 - THE HOUSE WITH THE YELLOW DOOR
Vanessa stood in the doorway, the heavy black handgun trembling in her grip.
The ivory silk of my mother’s dress was stained with dirt at the hem, and her perfect makeup was smeared from crying. She didn’t look like the triumphant mistress anymore. She looked desperate, feral, and utterly terrified.
“Get back inside,” Vanessa commanded, her voice cracking as she pointed the barrel at my chest.
I instinctively shoved Charlotte behind me, shielding my daughter with my body.
“Vanessa, put that down,” I said, keeping my voice as calm and steady as I could. “You don’t want to do this in front of my daughter.”
“James called me,” she sobbed, stepping into the foyer and kicking the front door shut behind her. “He told me you found the train ticket. He said you know about Leo.”
“I know about all of it,” I said, staring her down. “I know James is Leo’s father. I know you’ve been living in a house in Oak Park funded by my stolen money. But James lied to you, Vanessa. He told you he was leaving me, didn't he? For twenty years, he promised he would leave.”
Vanessa’s hand shook harder. The gun wavered.
“He couldn’t leave!” she screamed, tears spilling over her mascara. “You had the talent! He needed your designs to build the brand! We were supposed to wait until the company was sold next month. He promised we were moving to Paris!”
“And you believed him?” I took a slow, calculated step forward. “He put my mother’s dress on you tonight to humiliate me, yes. But he also did it to make you complicit. If this blows up, you’re the face of the scandal. He’s going to let you take the fall for the stolen designs.”
“Shut up! You don’t know him!”
“I know he was on a train stealing my mother’s patents while she died!” I yelled back, the fury finally bleeding into my voice. “I know he kept her rosary like a trophy! What else has he kept from you, Vanessa?”
I reached into my bag and pulled out the Manila folder I had found in the cedar chest. I tossed it onto the entryway rug at her feet.
“Open it,” I demanded.
Vanessa looked from the gun, to me, to the folder on the floor. Slowly, she lowered the weapon slightly and nudged the folder open with the toe of her designer heel.
She saw the offshore bank statements.
“Look at the dates, Vanessa,” I pushed. “He wired fifty thousand dollars to the Caymans twenty years ago. Did you ever see a dime of that money?”
Vanessa’s breath hitched. She stared at the paper.
“He told me... he told me we were broke back then. He said he couldn't afford Leo's medical bills when he had asthma.”
“He let your son suffer while he hid my mother’s money,” I said softly. “James only cares about James.”
The gun slowly dropped to her side. The fight drained out of her, leaving a hollow, broken woman wearing a stolen dress.
“He took Leo,” Vanessa whispered, her voice completely dead.
My heart stopped. “What?”
“After you left the gala, James panicked. He realized the board was going to investigate the intellectual property of the dress. He called me from the coat room. He told me to come here and stop you from going to the police.” She looked up at me, her eyes hollow. “He went to the house in Oak Park. He took my son. He said if I don't handle you, I'll never see Leo again.”
A cold wave of horror washed over me. James wasn't just a white-collar criminal. He was holding a child hostage to protect his empire.
“Where is he taking him?” I asked, stepping closer to her.
“I don’t know,” Vanessa sobbed, dropping the gun onto the rug and collapsing to her knees. “He has a private plane chartered for Teterboro tomorrow morning. But I don't know where he is right now.”
I looked down at the woman who had helped destroy my life. I should have hated her. I should have called the police and let her rot. But she was a mother, and James had taken her child.
I noticed something glinting on Vanessa’s wrist. It was a heavy gold charm bracelet.
“Where did you get that bracelet?” I asked, kneeling beside her.
Vanessa wiped her eyes. “James gave it to me for our tenth anniversary. He said it belonged to his grandmother.”
I grabbed her wrist and looked closely at the gold charms. One of them was a tiny, intricate sailboat.
It didn't belong to James’s grandmother. It belonged to my Aunt Linda.
May you like
My mother’s sister.
“Vanessa,” I said, looking her dead in the eye. “Get up. We’re going to my aunt’s house.”
