Chapter 14 - The Final Collapse
Eleanor Vance’s knees buckled.
She didn't fall gracefully. She hit the cold concrete tarmac with a dull, wet thud, her expensive coat sprawling around her in the puddle of rainwater that had collected near the Maybach’s tires.
“No...” she choked out, clawing at the wet asphalt. “No! It was supposed to be Blythe! Everything was for Blythe! I gave thirty years of my life to make her perfect! I starved her, I dressed her, I bought her pageants, I bought her friends! She was supposed to be the princess!”
She looked up at me from the ground, her face twisting into the most grotesque, horrifying expression of motherly betrayal I had ever seen.
“Why couldn't you just die?” Eleanor screamed at me, the rain beginning to mist over her face once more. “Why couldn't you just stay in Minneapolis and die like you were supposed to? You took everything from her! You took her fiancé! You took her wedding! And now you’re taking her money!”
“It was never her money, Eleanor,” I said.
I didn't yell. I didn't spit the words. I spoke with the calm, immovable weight of an ocean tide.
“You spent thirty years treating love like a transaction,” I said, looking down at the woman who had made me hate my own reflection for half my life. “You thought beauty was a license to steal, to lie, and to destroy anyone who didn't fit into your shallow little frame. But the world doesn't belong to the prettiest face in the room, Eleanor.”
I took the leather-bound trust document from Julian Thorne’s hands, feeling the cold weight of the gold seal against my fingers.
“The world belongs to the people who build things that endure.”
Two black-and-white squad cars from the Madison Police Department, accompanied by an unmarked black sedan with federal plates, swept around the corner of the hangar, their sirens wailing in the crisp autumn air.
Federal agents in windbreakers bearing the letters *FBI* stepped out of the sedan, followed by two armed county deputies.
A tall woman with a badge pinned to her lapel walked straight to where Eleanor lay on the tarmac.
“Eleanor Vance?” the agent asked, pulling a set of steel handcuffs from her belt.
Eleanor didn't answer. She was staring at me with hollow, dead eyes, her mouth slack, her spirit completely extinguished.
“Eleanor Vance, you are under arrest for federal wire fraud, conspiracy to commit interstate bank fraud, and filing false instruments with a federal regulatory agency,” the agent recited, pulling Eleanor’s arms behind her back with efficient, practiced motion. The handcuffs clicked shut with a sharp, metallic finality.
On the stairs of the jet, two deputies gently escorted Blythe down onto the tarmac.
Blythe didn't scream anymore. She didn't fight. Her eyes were completely vacant, staring through the flashing red and blue lights as if she were trapped in a permanent, waking nightmare. As they led her past Reid and me toward the squad car, she didn't look at either of us.
The golden child had become a ghost.
Arthur Sterling stepped forward, extending his hand to Julian Thorne. “Julian. It’s been twenty years since the banking summit in Basel.”
“Arthur,” Julian replied, shaking the older man’s hand with genuine warmth. “I apologize for the mess on your tarmac. My family has some rather toxic branches that required pruning.”
“Consider them pruned,” Arthur said, glancing over at the squad cars pulling away toward the airfield exit.
Reid walked over to me, standing close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. He looked down at the leather portfolio in my hands, then up at my face.
“Dr. Vance,” Reid said, a faint, tender smile playing across his lips. “It appears you’ve had quite a busy morning. You cured refractory leukemia, took down a fraudulent brokerage firm, and inherited a European shipping syndicate before lunchtime.”
I let out a soft, breathless laugh, feeling the last remnants of the past thirteen years drift away into the cold Wisconsin wind.
“I think,” I said, looking up into his clear gray eyes, “I’d like that coffee now, Reid.”
Reid’s smile widened, bright and genuine.
May you like
“Your driver awaits, Dr. Vance.”
***