«Eleanor Vance posted the bail,» he reported curtly, opening the car door. «Get in.» On the way to the now familiar Fortress Estate, he brought me up to speed.
«The case is bad. Very bad. The charges are serious.»
«They have the documents your sister gave them. She is the prosecution’s main witness. She will testify that you personally gave her those papers, that you were in a panic and asked her to hide them.»
«Naturally, as a law-abiding citizen, she immediately reported it to the police.» «But that’s a lie!» I exclaimed. «A lie supported by evidence is called a fact in court,» the lawyer cut in.
«Your signature is on the documents. The motive, according to their version, is revenge on your husband and a desire for unjust enrichment. The case is almost 100% winnable for them.»
«You are facing up to 10 years.» 10 years. The number echoed hollowly in my head.
10 years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. Eleanor Vance met me in the living room. She wasn’t yelling.
She was calm. And that was scarier than any fury. «Stop crying,» she said, when I broke down in sobs, unable to hold it together.
«Tears won’t help the case. You wanted to trust your sister? You got the result.»
«Now stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s time to start thinking.» She waited until I calmed down a little.
«Court is no longer an option. We will lose. We need to approach this from another angle.»
«Your husband orchestrated this scam because he desperately needed money. A lot of money. Not just for his escape.»
«He owes someone, and that debt is burning his feet. We need to find out who he owes and what for. We need to find that single thread we can pull to unravel the whole mess.»
«But how can we do that?» I asked helplessly. «You can’t do it,» Eleanor replied. «But I know a person who can.»
She took a notebook from the desk drawer, tore out a sheet, and wrote a name and phone number on it. «His name is Leonard Price. He used to be the best investigative journalist in the city.»
«He dug up several high-profile cases. A couple of years ago, he started digging into your husband. Marcus was just starting his career in the city council back then and was already involved in some land parcel schemes.»
«Leonard almost finished the job, but he was stopped by Tiffany Chambers and her father, District Attorney Chambers. He was fired with a bad recommendation, accused of publishing libel. Since then, he’s been scraping by with small jobs, writing ad copy for brochures.»
«He hates your husband with a burning passion, and he loves money. Call him. Tell him I sent you.»
Leonard Leo Price set the meeting in an old, dimly lit bar on the city outskirts. He turned out to be a man in his 50s with tired but very intelligent eyes, wearing a worn tweed jacket. He smelled of tobacco and disappointment.
He listened to me silently, without interruption. When I finished, he looked at me for a long time and then said, «I know this story. The beginning of it, anyway.»
«I knew Marcus was a thief, but I didn’t think he was capable of this. And your sister? Wow, what a family!»
«Will you help?» I asked hopefully. «Eleanor Vance pays well.» He smiled crookedly.
«And I have a loan for my daughter’s college tuition, so yes, I’ll help.» «Where do we start?» «With the money,» I replied. «We need to understand why he needed such an enormous sum so quickly.»
The next few days were spent working. Leo, using his old connections, dug up all of Marcus’s financial secrets. We sat for hours in his tiny, smoke-filled apartment, littered with old newspapers, examining bank statements, credit histories, and transaction records.
The picture that emerged was grim. The lake house was just the tip of the iceberg. Marcus had lived beyond his means.
Expensive watches, suits, trips to resorts, gifts for Tiffany, all bought on credit. The total amount of debt to the banks was colossal, but even that didn’t explain the urgency and the extreme risk he took. «There’s something else here,» Leo said, peering at another statement.
«Look, besides the official loan payments, there are regular transfers of large sums to the same account on the same date every month. And this account is anonymous, registered to a shell company. This isn’t a loan. This is blackmail.»
«Blackmail,» I repeated. «Who could be blackmailing him?» «Someone who knows something about him that could destroy his career and life even faster than his debts,» Leo mused.
«Something worse than theft. We need to find the owner of this account. But that’s almost impossible.»
We hit a wall. Leo tried to trace the account through his channels, but without success. All traces were cut off.
I was in despair. I went over the events of the last few weeks again and again, trying to find some kind of clue. And suddenly, I remembered a tiny, insignificant detail that I had barely noticed at the time, the day I was abandoned at the bus stop.
Eleanor’s driver, Darius. When he got out of the car to open the door for me, I smelled his cigarettes. Sharp, spicy, very distinctive.
And I saw the pack he pulled from his pocket, black with some kind of gold crest. I had never seen cigarettes like that before. I told Leo about it.
«It’s probably silly,» I said. «There are no silly details in our business,» he replied. «Any detail can be a key. A black pack with a crest sounds like something rare, high-end.»
The next two days were dedicated to staking out Marcus. We took turns waiting in Leo’s car near the city council building. It was boring and exhausting.
Marcus came to work, left, met with some officials. Nothing suspicious. On the third day, I was on watch.
It was evening, starting to get dark. I was sitting in the car, parked across the street, drinking cold coffee from a paper cup. Suddenly, I saw Marcus leave the building.
He was alone and clearly nervous. He was looking around. A minute later, an inconspicuous man in a gray trench coat approached him.
They talked quickly. Marcus took a thick envelope from his briefcase and handed it to the man. The man shoved the envelope into his pocket without counting and walked away quickly.
«That’s him, the blackmailer.» I grabbed the phone to take a picture of him, but it was already too dark, and he was quickly walking away. I jumped out of the car and rushed after him, trying to keep my distance.
The man in the trench coat walked to the corner, turned into a quiet alley, and stopped next to a parked car. It wasn’t Eleanor’s black limousine, just an ordinary dark sedan. The man got into the passenger seat.
The driver’s side door opened, and someone got out of the car. I hid behind a tree, my heart pounding in my throat. The driver took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one.
In the light of the streetlamp, I saw the pack, black with a gold crest. It was Darius, Eleanor Vance’s driver. He finished his cigarette, tossed the butt, and handed the blackmailer another envelope through the window.
The man took it, and the car immediately drove away. I stood behind the tree, and the ground was sinking beneath my feet. The picture that formed in my head was so monstrous that my mind refused to accept it.
Eleanor, my savior, my patroness, the person who gave me hope. Eleanor wasn’t just helping me. She was the director of this spectacle.
She was pulling the strings on both sides. The blackmailer who had driven Marcus to desperation and forced him into crime worked for her. The driver who, coincidentally, appeared at that bus stop and saved me was her accomplice.
This wasn’t help. It was a game, a big, cruel game in which Marcus was the target. And I, Naomi, was merely a weapon.
A pawn moved across the board to strike the enemy king. Eleanor used me to settle some old scores with Marcus. I stood behind the tree long after both cars had left.
The cold evening air burned my lungs, but I didn’t feel it. Everything inside me was numb. My sister’s betrayal had shattered my faith in family.
Eleanor’s manipulations destroyed my faith in salvation. I was alone, completely alone, surrounded by enemies and puppet masters. Everything that had happened to me wasn’t accidental.
My humiliation, my arrest, my despair. It was all part of someone else’s cruel plan. A rage, pure and cold as ice, filled the emptiness in my soul.
Rage at Marcus, at Tia, and now at Eleanor. I was used, my grief was played upon, my weakness exploited. I wasn’t an ally.
I was an instrument. I didn’t call Leo. I hailed a taxi, the first one I had paid for myself, the small amount of cash the journalist had given me for minor expenses.
I gave the address of Eleanor’s estate. I had to look her in the eyes. I burst into the house, ignoring Estelle’s surprised look.
Eleanor Vance was sitting in the living room with a book. She looked up and there wasn’t a hint of surprise in her eyes, as if she knew I would come, as if she had been waiting for it. «You know everything.»
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. «Yes,» I replied calmly, stopping in the middle of the room.
My hands were clenched into fists. «I saw it. I saw Darius.»
«I saw him hand over money to the man who was blackmailing my husband.» Eleanor Vance put down her book and slowly removed her reading glasses. «And what of it,» she asked, as if discussing the weather.
That calm, indifferent tone exploded inside me. «What of it,» I yelled. «You played me. You set this whole thing up. The blackmail.»
«My accidental rescue. You knew Marcus would do something stupid. You pushed him to it.»
«You used me to destroy him?» «Yes,» Eleanor replied, just as calmly. She stood up and walked to the bar, pouring herself a glass of water.
«And what of it? The end justifies the means. The driver is an irrelevant detail.»
«The goal is Marcus, and you are the weapon. The most effective weapon one could find. An offended, humiliated wife. Perfect.»
«Why,» I whispered, feeling my strength leaving me. «Why did you do this to him, and to me?» Eleanor took a sip of water and looked at me.
Something resembling a memory flickered in her eyes for a moment. «Many years ago, when your Marcus was still a junior assistant to a big shot, he helped his boss deal with a small but very promising factory. My factory.»
«The first one I built from the ground up. They bankrupted it. Took it for pennies.»
«I lost everything. I swore that someday I would destroy them all. His boss has been rotting in the ground for years from cirrhosis.»
«And your husband? Your husband decided he was a big man. He forgot. But I didn’t.»
Now everything fell into place. It was revenge. Long, cold, carefully planned revenge.
«And I just happened to get in the way?» I asked bitterly. «You became the perfect instrument,» Eleanor corrected me. «And I gave you a chance.»
«A chance not just to get your own back, but to become stronger. I taught you to fight. Or would you prefer to still be sitting on that bus stop crying?»
She was right, as monstrous as it sounded. She was right. Eleanor had transformed me from a victim into a fighter, albeit for her own purposes.
«What now?» I asked. My voice was steady. The tears and yelling were over.
«Now that I know everything, you’ll kick me out. You’ll let them put me in jail.» Eleanor smiled.
«On the contrary. Now that you know everything, you’ve become even more dangerous. You’re angry.»
«You’re motivated. Now you’ll fight not for an apartment, but for yourself. And that is the strongest motivation.»
She walked to her massive writing desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a thin folder. She threw it on the table in front of me. «Your husband and his mistress have a very powerful protector.»
«Tiffany’s father, District Attorney Chambers. As long as he is in office, you have no chance. He will cover for both his daughter and his future son-in-law.»
«All your lawsuits, all your evidence, will shatter against his office door.» I opened the folder. Inside were photographs and photocopies of documents.
In the photos, District Attorney Chambers was receiving envelopes from well-known local businessmen. The documents were bank transfers to his shell companies. This was evidence.
Killer proof of corruption. Enough for several life sentences. «Where did you get this?»
«I have eyes and ears everywhere,» Eleanor cut in. «This is your key to freedom. Go to Chambers right now.»
«Show him this and make a deal.» «What deal?» «He drops all fraud charges against you. The criminal case is closed due to lack of evidence.»
«In exchange, you give him this folder and disappear. You leave the city forever. You’ll have to give up the apartment, of course.»
«That’s the price for your freedom. Go. Darius will take you.»
This was a way out. Ugly, unfair, but a way out. To save my life, my freedom, by sacrificing everything else.
My home, my job, my past. An hour later, I was sitting in the waiting room of the District Attorney’s office. The secretary was hesitant to let me in, but I simply said, «Tell the District Attorney I have a folder for him from Eleanor Vance.»
Thirty seconds later, the office door opened. Chambers was a heavy man with a stern, authoritative face. He met me standing.
«What do you want?» He growled. I walked silently to his desk and laid the contents of the folder before him.
The photos, the documents. He looked at them, and his face, which had been turning crimson with anger, became ashen gray. He slowly sank into his chair.
«What? What do you want?» He asked, and the old confidence was gone from his voice.
«I want the criminal case against me to be immediately dropped,» I said clearly. «All charges withdrawn due to lack of evidence.» The District Attorney was silent, shifting his gaze from the papers to my face.
«Fine.» He finally managed. «But that’s not all, is it? What else does Vance want?»
«Vance has nothing to do with this,» I replied. «These are my terms.» Chambers raised his eyebrows in surprise.
«Very well. Your terms.» I paused, gathering my thoughts.
This was the moment. The deal. Eleanor had offered me a clear plan.
Freedom in exchange for silence and the apartment. It was logical. It was safe.
«I want you to…» I stopped. I looked at the frightened face of this all-powerful man. I looked at the folder with the evidence.
I remembered Marcus’s face when he abandoned me on the highway. Tiffany’s face with my mother’s pendant around her neck. Tia’s face, full of deceptive tears.
