The driver opened the doors for us. «Ms. Vance, any instructions?» «You’re free, Darius. I’ll call you if I need you.»
We went inside. The interior was as stark and impersonal as the outside. A huge hall, expensive but austere furniture, not a single photograph on the walls.
«Come in,» the old woman said, pointing her cane toward the living room. I walked over and sat on the edge of a stiff sofa. The old woman remained standing in the middle of the room.
She stood motionless for several seconds, and then she did what I absolutely did not expect. She removed the dark sunglasses and looked at me. Her eyes were not blind.
They were incredibly vibrant, sharp, and piercing, intelligent, cold, all-seeing eyes. «My name is Eleanor Vance,» she said in a completely different authoritative voice, «and you, Naomi Sterling, are 38 years old, and you work as an administrator at the steel mill. Your husband’s name is Marcus Sterling. He’s 42. He’s a minor official in the city council aiming for higher office. All correct?»
I was paralyzed. I couldn’t utter a word, only managed a nod. «That’s good.»
Eleanor Vance walked to the bar, poured a glass of water, and held it out to me. «Drink. You’ll need your strength.» I took the glass with trembling hands.
«Where… where do you know all this? And why… why were you pretending?» Eleanor Vance smiled faintly. «In this city, I know everything about everyone who matters, or who thinks they matter, and I was pretending because it’s useful. People aren’t afraid of the blind, and they say things in front of them that they’d never say to someone who can see.»
«I often sit there, observing, listening. Today, I got lucky. I saw an interesting performance.»
She settled into the armchair opposite me. «Your husband is a parasite, a petty, ambitious, and foolish parasite. He took on enormous debt to build a showy house and throw dust in the eyes of important people, and now he decided to get rid of you and your apartment to pay for it. Am I right?»
I nodded again. «The apartment. It was my parents’ apartment. The only thing that was truly mine.»
«I will help you,» Eleanor Vance stated firmly. «I will give you everything you need. Clothing, a phone, the best lawyers. We will get your apartment and your good name back, but it won’t be free.»
«What do you want in return?» I whispered. «You will owe me. You can consider it a favor or a debt. You’ll decide that yourself. When the time comes, I will ask for a favor in return, but for now, you will do exactly what I tell you. Deal?»
I looked into those hard, unblinking eyes. I knew I was making a deal with the devil, but the devil was offering me salvation, while the husband who had sworn to love me had left me to die on the roadside. «Deal,» I said.
Eleanor Vance nodded, satisfied. She seemed not to have doubted my answer for a second. At that moment, something clicked in my mind.
A memory that my brain, frightened and humiliated, had blocked until now. A picture of the last seconds at that bus stop. I remembered Marcus’s car starting, how I watched it drive away, and how, even as I drove off in Eleanor’s black sedan, I had cast one last look back at the spot where I was abandoned, and I saw it.
Marcus’s car hadn’t left. It was parked about a hundred yards farther down the road, hidden just around the curve. He hadn’t just driven away.
He had stopped. He was watching. He was observing me, making sure I was left alone, helpless, and in complete despair.
He hadn’t just wanted to abandon me. He wanted to savor my humiliation to the last drop. Only when another car arrived and picked me up did he finally leave.
A cold horror, far stronger than despair, pierced me. This hadn’t been an argument. It hadn’t been an impulsive act.
This was a planned, cold-blooded, cruel performance, where I was assigned the role of the victim, and he, the audience. The realization burned inside me, displacing the tears and confusion. In their place came a cold, wringing rage.
The glass in my hand trembled, and a few drops of water fell onto the expensive upholstery. I didn’t even notice. My entire being was focused on one single thought.
He didn’t just abandon me. He enjoyed my suffering. Eleanor Vance watched the change in my expression with undisguised approval.
«That’s better,» she said, and there was something akin to satisfaction in her voice. «Hatred is much better fuel than self-pity. You can travel far on it.»
She pressed a button on a small remote control lying on the table. A minute later, a woman in a severe gray dress, looking like a housekeeper from an old film, silently entered the room. «Estelle, show Naomi to the guest room. Let her take a shower. Prepare clothing, undergarments, everything she needs. Size 10, I believe. And bring us dinner here, to the living room. Something simple.»
Estelle nodded, didn’t even glance at me, and said, «Follow me, please.» I silently got up and followed her. The guest room was as large and impersonal as the rest of the house.
In the bathroom, on the snow-white shelves, were new unopened bottles of shampoo and shower gel. A new toothbrush lay ready. On the bed, clothing was neatly laid out.
Dark trousers, a neutral beige cashmere sweater, a set of undergarments. Everything was expensive, high-quality, and utterly devoid of individuality, like a uniform. After showering and changing, I felt a little better.
The warm water washed away some of the shock, and the clean clothes gave me a fragile sense of control. When I returned to the living room, dinner was already set on the table. Roasted chicken, salad, sliced bread, and two more people.
One was Darius, the driver. He stood by the wall, hands clasped behind his back, motionless as a statue. The second man, about 50 years old, in a flawless suit and thin-rimmed glasses, sat in an armchair.
He had the face of a man who never smiled. «Naomi, sit down. Eat something,» Eleanor Vance said.
«This is Mr. Josiah Wells, my lawyer. He will be handling your affairs.» The lawyer adjusted his glasses and looked at me with dry, indifferent eyes.
«Naomi Sterling, based on preliminary information, your husband committed an act that could be qualified as abandonment in a dangerous situation. However, proving malicious intent will be virtually impossible. He will claim you argued, you exited the car voluntarily, and he drove off while distraught.»
«There are no witnesses, so forget that. That was merely the prelude.» His words were precise and cold, like scalpel cuts.
«The priority now is your property, specifically the apartment you inherited from your parents. This is your personal property, not subject to division in a divorce. He has no rights to it, but the fact that he took a step like today suggests he is ready to act unconventionally.»
«What should I do?» I asked quietly. Eleanor Vance interjected again. She picked up a new, still-boxed smartphone from the table.
«This is your new phone. The number is clean, unregistered anywhere. Communication only through this. Consider your old number lost. It has only two numbers saved, Mr. Wells’s and mine. You don’t need anyone else.»
She paused. «Now go home.» I looked up at her, surprised.
«Why?» «To see what he has truly done,» Eleanor replied. «You think he just threw you out on the highway? That was only the beginning. You must see everything with your own eyes. Feel it. Understand who you are dealing with.»
«Darius will take you.» A sense of strength, mixed with fear, filled me again. With such support, I felt almost invulnerable.
I had the best lawyer. I had a patroness, who clearly the entire city feared. Marcus was just a small-time official.
What could he possibly do? Darius drove as smoothly and silently as the first time. We entered the city, which was already sinking into evening twilight.
Familiar streets, houses, shops, and then our block. My heart pounded faster. «I’ll wait here,» Darius said unemotionally, as I got out of the car.
I nodded and walked toward the entrance. My hands were shaking a little. I imagined opening the door with my key, and him sitting in the living room, confident that I was wandering somewhere on a dark highway.
I imagined his face when he saw me on the threshold, strong, calm, ready for war. I went up to my third-floor apartment. There it was, the familiar leather-clad door.
I took my set of keys from the pocket of the jacket I’d left in the car that morning. I put the key into the keyhole, and it wouldn’t turn. I froze, tried again.
The key only went in halfway and hit something. I pulled it out, looked at it as if the key were to blame, then inserted it again. Same result.
The panic I had so carefully suppressed began to rise from the depths of my soul. I tried the second key for the bottom lock. The same thing.
The locks were new. He had changed the locks. I recoiled from the door as if struck.
This couldn’t be. This was my apartment. The apartment where I grew up, where it smelled like my mother’s pie and my father’s books.
He couldn’t. He had no right. I hit the door hard, several times with my fist.
«Marcus, open up. I know you’re in there. Open this door now.»
Silence. Not a sound. Not a whisper.
Only a curious neighbor peered out from the landing above, but seeing me, she quickly disappeared behind her door. My hands instinctively reached for the new phone. I found Mr. Wells’s number.
The lawyer answered instantly, as if he had been waiting. «Yes, Mr. Wells. It’s Naomi. He changed the locks. I can’t get into my own apartment.»
«I expected this,» he replied calmly. «Call the sheriff’s department. Tell them that unknown individuals changed the locks on your apartment, and you cannot get home. Not a word about your husband. Just unknown individuals. Wait for them. I am on my way.»
Calling the police seemed so absurd. Calling the police just to get into my own home. I dialed 911 and explained the situation to the dispatcher with a trembling voice.
They promised a squad car would arrive. The wait was agonizing. I sat on the steps, huddled, staring at my door, which had suddenly become alien and hostile.
After 20 minutes, two officers appeared on the landing. A young deputy with a tired face and his older partner. «You called?» The deputy asked lazily. «What’s the situation?»
I stood up and tried to explain. «This is my apartment. I came home and my keys don’t work. The locks have been changed.»
«Do you have the documents for the apartment? Your ID?» The older officer asked. «Everything’s inside,» I replied helplessly. «I left this morning without my purse.»
The deputy scoffed skeptically. «I see. Well, we can’t legally break down the door. Maybe you sold it? Or maybe relatives live here?»
Just then, the entrance door downstairs slammed and fast footsteps sounded on the stairs. Marcus appeared on the landing, but he wasn’t alone. Walking beside him, holding his arm, was a young, beautiful woman in an elegant business suit.
Tiffany Chambers, the district attorney’s daughter. I knew her from the city events I sometimes attended with my husband. Marcus looked calm and confident.
He even feigned concern on his face. «Naomi, there you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why aren’t you answering your phone?»
He addressed me, but his eyes were on the officers. «Gentlemen, is something wrong? This is my wife. She’s going through a difficult period. A bit unstable.»
Tiffany stood silently beside him, eyeing me with contempt. And then I saw it. Around Tiffany’s neck was a thin gold chain with a small, irregularly shaped pearl.
It was my mother’s pendant, the one valuable piece of jewelry I kept in a box in the bedroom. Tiffany, catching my eye, casually touched the pearl with her fingers. A slight, triumphant smile touched the corners of her lips.
«Your wife claims she can’t get into the apartment,» the deputy said, and his tone had already changed. He was looking at the respectable, confident man, not the disheveled woman without documents. «Ah, that.» Marcus sighed sympathetically. «Yes, I was forced to change the locks. For her own safety and ours.»
«We’re divorcing. Naomi has been having episodes of aggression lately.» He took a few papers from a folder and handed them to the police.
«This is a copy of the divorce petition. And this, this is a restraining order. She’s forbidden to approach me or this apartment. Her doctor strongly recommended it.»
I stared at him, my vision darkening. Divorce, restraining order, doctor. What lies? What monstrous, calculated lies?
«That’s not true,» I screamed. «He’s lying about everything. This is my apartment.»
«Calm down, ma’am,» the deputy said sternly, examining the papers. «This is all official. It has a seal.»
At that moment, Mr. Wells came up to the landing. He nodded silently to me and addressed the officers. «I am Naomi Sterling’s attorney. What is happening here?»
Marcus scanned him with an appraising look. «And who might you be?» «My client cannot access her own property. According to the documents, the apartment belongs to her by right of inheritance.»
«It was her property,» Marcus corrected calmly. His eyes gleamed. He had been waiting for this moment.
He was relishing it. The older officer, having finished reading the last paper, looked up and glanced at me with ill-concealed pity. «Ma’am, I’m afraid you no longer have rights to this apartment. According to this document, filed with the county recorder’s office, you are no longer the owner.»
Mr. Wells frowned. «What document? Show me.» Marcus, with the same mocking smile, handed him another sheet.
The lawyer quickly skimmed it. His face became impenetrable for the first time. He silently passed the paper to me.
