Chapter 36 - The Penthouse Siege
The private helicopter touched down at the East 34th Street Heliport just after two in the afternoon.
Manhattan was crisp and grey beneath a high autumn ceiling. The city moved with its usual indifferent ferocity, millions of lives intersecting without a thought for the silent war being fought behind the limestone facades of the Upper East Side.
Vincent had arranged two armored Suburbans to meet us at the pad. Helena refused to stay behind in Wisconsin; she sat beside me in the rear seat, dressed in a sharp, tailored black wool overcoat Vincent’s team had procured for her, her silver hair pulled back into an immaculate, severe chignon. She looked every inch the formidable matriarch who had commanded boardroom tables before I was born.
As the convoy turned onto Fifth Avenue, the familiar limestone tower loomed ahead.
My stomach coiled, but not with fear. The last time I had stood before this building, I was a broken, terrified ghost—the woman who had escaped her Chicago cage only to find her entire reality shattered upon discovering another woman’s clothes in Arthur’s closet, another child’s drawings taped to the Sub-Zero refrigerator.
I had run away that day in tears, questioning my own sanity.
Today, I wasn't running.
"The service entrance is occupied by two moving trucks from a high-end estate transit firm," Miller reported from the front passenger seat, monitoring his tablet. "Four private security guards on the ground floor. Victoria hired an executive protection team to escort her to Teterboro."
"They’re private contractors," Vincent said, checking his watch. "They work for hourly retainers. The moment federal marshals present the Gary search warrants, those guards will step aside. Our concern is the penthouse interior. Victoria has two personal assistants inside packing the primary art collection."
We pulled up to the main canopy. The doorman, a man named Thomas who had looked right through me with icy disdain when I had tried to enter four weeks ago, stiffened as the two black Suburbans mounted the curb.
Vincent stepped out first, flashing a Department of Justice executive liaison credential that made the doorman’s face lose all color.
I stepped out next, turning to offer my hand to Helena.
Thomas’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets as Helena Vance set foot on the Fifth Avenue pavement. He had worked this building for twenty years; he had seen the portraits, the society archives, the architectural plans signed with her distinctive hand. He looked at Helena, then at me, the blood draining entirely from his cheeks.
"Mrs... Mrs. Vance?" Thomas stammered, his hand trembling as he reached for the brass door handle.
"Step aside, Thomas," Helena said softly, not even deigning to look at him as she swept past the revolving doors into the marble lobby. "And if you touch that house phone to alert the penthouse, I will ensure your pension fund is audited before sunset."
The elevator ride up to the sixty-fourth floor was dead silent.
The brass indicator clicked upward: *60... 61... 62... 63... Penthouse.*
The private elevator doors slid open directly into the grand gallery.
The scene inside was chaos. Wooden crates lined the herringbone floors. Pristine oil paintings—canvases Arthur had told me were locked away in Swiss vaults—were being wrapped in archival paper by two terrified-looking assistants.
Standing near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park was Victoria Vance.
She was forty, impeccably blonde, wearing an ivory silk blouse and tailored trousers. She was on a silver cell phone, her voice sharp with agitation. "...I don't care about the FAA clearance! Tell the pilot we wheels up at four sharp, or Arthur will have his license revoked—"
She stopped.
Her eyes drifted toward the elevator vestibule.
The phone slipped from her ear, dangling loosely in her manicured fingers. Her gaze flicked from Vincent, standing broad-shouldered and lethal at the entryway, to me, standing at his side.
"You," Victoria breathed, her voice turning thin and shrill. "The girl from Chicago. How did you get past the lobby? Security!"
"Security is currently discussing their legal liability with the United States Marshals Service in your lobby, Victoria," I said, stepping into the gallery. My voice didn't shake. It was smooth, clear, and carried across the cavernous room like a gunshot.
"Get out of my home!" Victoria screeched, backing toward the grand staircase where a young girl, no older than nine, stood clutching a stuffed rabbit, watching in wide-eyed terror. "You have no right to be here! Arthur warned me about you—he said you were mentally unstable, an obsessive stalker from his Midwest properties—"
"Save the performance, Victoria," a second voice echoed through the gallery.
Helena stepped out from behind the marble pillar, her cane striking the hardwood with a single, resounding *crack*.
Victoria froze. The color didn't just leave her face; it looked as though her soul had been ripped out through her teeth. She grabbed the banister of the staircase to keep from collapsing, her chest heaving as she stared at the woman she had spent a decade pretending was dead.
"H... Helena?" Victoria whispered, the name choking in her throat like poison.
May you like
"You’ve redecorated," Helena said, her sharp eyes scanning the modern art on the walls with utter disgust. "Pedestrian taste, Victoria. But then again, Arthur always did prefer women who lacked the intellect to challenge his balance sheets."
***
