Chapter 8 - The Shadow of the Past
The silence that followed Reid’s confession was thick, heavy, and profound.
Outside the conservatory, the wind rattled the glass panes, but inside, the air felt charged, as if an electrical current were humming through the limestone floor.
I looked down at the faded signature in the worn notebook.
Thirteen years ago, when I fled Wisconsin, I had believed myself to be completely unlovable. My mother’s cruel words had carved grooves into my psyche so deep that I had built my entire life as an emotional bunker. I had poured every ounce of my soul into medicine, into research, into the cold, clean logic of pathology laboratories, because science didn't care if your nose was slightly crooked or if your hair wasn't golden blonde. Science only cared if your equations balanced and your patients survived.
And yet, across all those years of self-imposed exile, the work I had done in the dark had reached out and touched someone so profoundly that it had altered the course of his entire life.
“Blythe didn't just steal my patents, did she?” I whispered, the full weight of the deception settling onto my shoulders. “She found out about your mother. She used your grief against you.”
“She did,” Reid said, his jaw tightening. “My family’s private foundation published a retrospective on my mother’s treatment five years ago in the *New England Journal of Medicine*. Your name was cited in the footnotes as the attending fellow. Blythe must have hired an investigator to scour my family’s public philanthropic records before she ever approached me at that club.”
“She always did that,” I said, looking out into the darkness over the lake. “When we were children, if I spent three weeks building a science fair project, Blythe would wait until the night before the judging to announce she was running for class president. If someone praised my report card, Mom would immediately pull out Blythe’s pageant trophies. They couldn't stand the idea of me existing in a space where they weren't the center of gravity.”
“Well,” Reid said softly, “the gravity shifted today.”
Before I could reply, the heavy doors of the conservatory opened, and Arthur Sterling walked in, holding a fresh legal brief in a red folder. He had clearly not gone to sleep; his eyes were sharp, his silver hair neatly combed back.
“The county prosecutor just called my cell,” Arthur announced, sitting down in the armchair beside his nephew. “Eleanor Vance didn't just ram the gate tonight. She blew a 0.14 on the breathalyzer. She’s officially being held without bail until the morning arraignment.”
I closed my eyes, pressing my fingertips against my temples. Even after everything she had done, hearing that my mother was sitting in a county jail cell made an involuntary knot of nausea twist in my gut.
“And Richard?” I asked.
Arthur’s expression darkened. “Richard Vance’s partners held an emergency board meeting forty minutes ago. They discovered that Richard had moved four point two million dollars out of their client trust accounts over the last eighteen months to cover the margin calls on his speculative biotech investments—investments he made based on Blythe’s fraudulent patent filings.”
I looked up, stunned. “Four million dollars?”
“The partners voted unanimously to refer the matter to the FBI Financial Crimes Task Force,” Arthur said plainly. “Richard’s firm will be padlocked by nine o'clock tomorrow morning. He’s looking at ten to fifteen years in federal custody.”
“And Blythe?” Reid asked, his voice completely devoid of sympathy.
“Blythe was released into the custody of her defense attorney,” Arthur said. “A man named Jonathan Ross—an old friend of Richard’s who handles white-collar defense. But Ross called me fifteen minutes ago off the record.”
Arthur leaned forward, looking directly at me.
“Blythe isn't staying at her apartment, Willa. She left the precinct on foot, refused to get into Ross’s car, and told him she was coming to find you.”
A chill ran down my spine. “Find me? Why?”
“Because in Blythe’s mind,” Arthur said, “the world is an audience, and you are the only person who can stop the curtain from falling. She believes that if she can corner you alone—if she can appeal to that old, childhood dynamic where she cries and you take the blame—that you will sign the affidavit confirming the patent transfer to save the family from complete ruin.”
Reid stood up immediately, his face darkening with protective rage. “Donald has the gates locked. She won't get within a mile of this house.”
“She doesn't need to get past the gates, Reid,” Arthur said grimly, tapping the red folder. “Ross told me Blythe knows about the old boathouse path. The Vance family used to rent the adjacent summer cottage thirty years ago, before the state turned the shoreline into a public conservation easement. If she knows the shoreline trail, she can walk right up to our private pier.”
As if on cue, a sudden, sharp sound echoed through the conservatory.
May you like
It was the distinct, rhythmic tapping of glass coming from the lower terrace doors leading down to the lake.
***