Chapter 2 - The Morning After
At 7:30 AM, my phone began to vibrate against the granite kitchen island.
It was a sharp, frantic buzz that moved the phone three inches across the counter before I picked it up. The caller ID displayed BEATRICE JENNINGS.
I ignored it, turning back to the stove where I was flipping chocolate chip pancakes for Lily.
Ten seconds later, the phone buzzed again. BEATRICE JENNINGS.
I let it ring until it went to voicemail.
By 8:15 AM, as Lily was sitting at the breakfast nook happily eating her pancakes, my phone chimed with a text message from Jocelyn:
Vivian, Mom is in hysterics. Her American Express card was declined at her country club breakfast event this morning. The manager had to come to her table! What is going on with the account? Fix it immediately, it's so embarrassing.
I read the text, smiled faintly, and set the phone face down without replying.
"Mommy?" Lily asked, wiping a smudge of maple syrup from her lip with a paper napkin. "Are we going to school today?"
"You're coming with me for a little while, sweetie," I said, handing her a glass of orange juice. "We have an appointment in Bellevue at eleven o'clock. Then I'm taking you to the art supply store downtown to buy proper professional canvas and oil paints for your next book."
Lily’s eyes lit up like lanterns. "Real oil paints? The kind in the metallic tubes?"
"The exact kind," I promised, leaning down to hug her tight.
At 10:15 AM, my phone buzzed with a call from an unfamiliar number. I answered it on the second ring.
"Vivian?" a man’s hesitant, nervous voice came through the speaker. It was Grant, Jocelyn’s husband.
"Hello, Grant," I said coolly.
"Viv, look... I’m calling from my office," Grant stammered, his voice laced with unmistakable panic. "I just got a call from the business office at Lakeside Academy. They said the tuition payment for Brielle and Mason bounced this morning. They said the corporate account was closed."
"It wasn't bounced, Grant," I corrected him smoothly. "It was cancelled."
"Cancelled?!" Grant gasped. "Vivian, tuition is due today for the spring semester! If it’s not cleared by noon, they’ll lose their enrollment spots! Jocelyn is screaming at her mother right now, trying to figure out what happened to the cards—"
"Jocelyn should spend less time screaming and more time looking at her husband’s logistics company balance sheet," I said coldly. "How much money did you pull out of the Bellhaven credit line last quarter, Grant?"
Silence fell over the line. Cold, heavy, suffocating silence.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about," Grant managed to choke out.
"The fourteen thousand dollars transferred to 'G&H Freight Solutions' on the fifteenth of last month," I cited from memory. "The twenty-two thousand dollars listed as 'consulting fees' paid directly to your personal checking account. I know about the forged quitclaim deed, Grant. I know about the Renton notary. And I know about the five-hundred-thousand-dollar application with Sterling Capital."
Grant’s breath hitched violently. "Vivian... please. Listen to me. The business was sinking... we were facing an audit from our primary lender... Jocelyn said your company had so much capital you’d never notice—"
"I noticed," I said. "Be at my mother’s house at eleven o'clock. If you aren't there, Marcus Hale will file the criminal referral with the King County Prosecutor's Office at 11:15."
I hung up before he could respond.
At 10:45 AM, I pulled my dark grey Range Rover up the long, winding cobblestone driveway of 4122 Hillcrest Lane in Bellevue.
The house was a seven-thousand-square-foot modern estate built of cedar, glass, and stacked stone, nestled on a two-acre lot overlooking Lake Washington. White rose bushes—the ones my mother insisted on having replaced every Friday by a high-end landscaping crew at a cost of twelve hundred dollars a month—lined the front walkway like ornate white sentinels.
Parked in the circular driveway was Jocelyn’s white Range Rover Sport—a vehicle leased through my company’s fleet account—and Grant’s grey Audi sedan.
A large black SUV was parked near the gates. Inside sat two off-duty King County sheriff’s deputies in dark uniforms, alongside Marcus Hale, who was holding a thick leather briefcase, and an independent commercial locksmith carrying a heavy tool kit.
I parked beside Marcus, stepped out of my car, and unbuckled Lily from the back seat. I held her small hand firmly in mine.
"Are we visiting Grandma?" Lily asked softly, looking up at the towering glass entryway of the mansion.
"We're taking back what belongs to us, sweetie," I said softly.
Marcus walked up to us, nodding grimly. "The deputies are ready, Vivian. The locksmith has the master code bypass."
"Let's go," I said.
May you like
We walked up the stone steps together. I didn't ring the doorbell. I didn't knock. I gestured to the locksmith, who stepped forward, inserted a master electronic key card into the digital lock, and turned the heavy brass handle.
The grand front door clicked open, swinging inward onto the white marble foyer.
