Chapter 6 - The Unraveling
Nolan followed me into the foyer, his composure collapsing into raw panic. He grabbed my arm, his grip tightening with the same desperate force he had used against my mother hours earlier.
“You can’t do this, Blair! You think anyone will care about a few technical accounting discrepancies? I have friends in the state legislature! I raised half a million dollars for the Commonwealth Attorney’s reelection campaign! Who do you think they’re going to believe? An unhinged old woman and a military officer who was away from home for six months, or me?”
I looked down at his hand gripping my forearm. Without raising my voice, I applied a standard joint-manipulation hold to his wrist, twisting his thumb backward with effortless leverage.
Nolan gasped in pain, his knees buckling as he was forced to release his grip and step back onto the marble tile.
“Do not ever touch me again,” I said coldly.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Detective Mercer’s direct line.
“Mercer,” the detective answered after two rings.
“Detective, this is Colonel Vickers. I am requesting an immediate forensic unit be dispatched to my mother’s residence at 442 Elmwood Lane. Specifically, I need your team to dust the glass shards from the broken living room cabinet for latent fingerprints.”
Nolan’s breath hitched in his throat.
“Colonel?” Mercer asked, alert. “What did you find?”
“My husband claims my mother swung an iron fireplace tool at him, causing him to crash into the cabinet. If you dust the underside of the cabinet shelves and the broken fragments, you will find my husband’s bare fingerprints on the reverse edges where he deliberately pulled the glass outward to create cutting implements. Furthermore, check the fireplace tool itself. You will not find my mother’s prints on the handle. You will find fabric fibers from Nolan’s driving gloves.”
On the other end of the line, Mercer was silent for three seconds. “Colonel, where is Mr. Vickers right now?”
“He is standing in our foyer. And Detective? I have two special agents from the Army Criminal Investigation Division arriving at your precinct within the hour with a federal evidentiary hold regarding the Ashford Family Heritage Trust.”
“Understood, Colonel,” Mercer said, his tone shifting into complete professional gravity. “A patrol unit is en route to your residence now.”
I hung up the phone and looked at Nolan.
He was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily, his eyes wild with terror. The bandage on his forearm looked grotesque now—a pathetic, self-inflicted wound meant to frame an innocent woman.
May you like
“You destroyed us,” he whispered bitterly, his voice shaking with malice. “Fifteen years, Blair. I managed your life while you played soldier in the desert. I gave you stability! I gave you a home!”
“You used my deployments to loot my family’s estate,” I answered, picking up my duffel bag from the floor. “You didn't give me stability, Nolan. You gave me an alibi.”
