Chapter 6 - The Aftermath of Sirens
The red and blue strobes painted the living room ceiling in frantic, rhythmic flashes long after the police cruiser’s taillights had vanished down the tree-lined Chestnut Hill driveway.
Diane Mercer sat collapsed on my entryway bench, her designer handbag clutched to her chest like a life jacket in a shipwreck, while Brooke paced back and forth across the hardwood floor, her phone buzzing incessantly with discarded calls from frantic creditors and school parents.
“You can’t just throw him out like garbage, Evelyn,” Brooke hissed, spinning around to face me, her eyes red-rimmed and venomous. “He’s your husband! He made sacrifices for this family!”
“No, Brooke,” I said, walking slowly into the foyer and leaning against the banister. My voice was calm, steady, and entirely devoid of the trembling compliance they had grown accustomed to over the last ten years. “He made a career out of taking credit for my work, and you made a lifestyle out of spending money that didn't belong to you. The party is over.”
“We’ll sue you,” Diane choked out, her voice cracking as she glared up at me through swollen, tear-streaked eyes. “We’ll contest the asset freeze. We’ll tell the hospital board you’re unstable, that you coerced him—!”
“Go ahead,” I interrupted, stepping closer until I towered over her sitting form. “Tell them. But remember that every single financial disclosure Detective Miller is currently reviewing includes your monthly living stipends listed under corporate tax evasion. If you want to join Nathan in a holding cell downtown, feel free to keep talking.”
Diane flinched as if she had been physically struck. She looked at me, truly looked at me, perhaps for the first time in a decade, and finally recognized the stranger standing in her son's house: not a doormat, but the architect of their ruin.
“Get out,” I said quietly, pointing toward the open front door where the cold March wind whipped past the threshold. “You have twenty minutes to gather your personal belongings from the guest suites before I have the locks changed. Catch an Uber. I hear Chloe is looking for company at the airport.”
Brooke opened her mouth to argue, but the cold, dead look in my eyes shut her down instantly. Grabbing her mother by the arm, she hauled the older woman up from the bench, and together, the two pillars of the Mercer family fled out the door into the dark, leaving the house completely silent behind them.
I walked back into the kitchen, picked up my glass of water, and stared out the window at the empty driveway.
My phone buzzed on the counter. It wasn’t a text from Nathan or an alert from a frozen bank account. It was a private, encrypted notification from an unknown sender.
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Unknown: "The police have Nathan, but they don't have the real ledger. Meet me at the Seaport docks in one hour if you want to know who funded his offshore accounts."
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