Chapter 7 - The Confrontation
I didn't have to wait to find Vanessa; she came looking for me.
At six o'clock that evening, the buzzer to my apartment began ringing incessantly. I looked at the security intercom monitor mounted near the front door. Vanessa was standing in the hallway, wearing a designer trench coat, her diamond wedding ring catching the fluorescent hallway light. Behind her stood Eleanor, looking anxiously over her shoulder as if worried a neighbor might see them.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open, leaving the heavy security chain in place.
“Take the chain off, Emily,” Eleanor commanded immediately, her voice strained with tight, brittle authority. “We need to talk inside. Now.”
“You have three minutes on this side of the door,” I said coldly.
Vanessa rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “Oh, grow up, Emily. Richard’s mother called me this morning asking why my maid of honor fled the wedding covered in blood. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? Richard’s family has a reputation in this city. You are ruining my life over a theatrical stunt!”
I stared at her through the gap in the door. I looked at her manicured hands, her perfectly styled hair, her composed posture. There was no remorse. There was no empathy. There was only the furious indignation of a predator whose prey had refused to die quietly.
“Did you tell Richard about the fireplace poker, Vanessa?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet.
The hallway fell instantly silent.
The color drained from Eleanor’s face so rapidly she looked like a corpse. She reached out, grabbing the doorframe to steady herself. “What... what did you say?”
Vanessa didn't flinch. Her eyes narrowed, the superficial gloss of her polished persona vanishing in an instant. That familiar, chilling emptiness returned to her face. “You went digging,” she whispered.
“I didn't have to dig far,” I replied, looking straight into her cold eyes. “Just down to the basement of 742 Elmwood Terrace. You crushed my skull when I was four years old because I touched your toy. And Mom hid the weapon behind the laundry hamper.”
“Be quiet!” Eleanor hissed, lunging toward the crack in the door, trying to force it wider. “Lower your voice! Someone will hear you!”
“Let them hear!” I shouted. “Let the whole world hear what you covered up! You paid off lawyers, you manipulated judges, and you buried a police report so your sociopathic daughter could grow up to swing metal weapons at people whenever she doesn't get her way!”
Vanessa stepped forward, pushing our mother aside. She leaned her face close to the opening, her voice dropping to a vicious, venomous whisper. “You were a weak, pathetic little parasite then, and you’re a weak, pathetic little parasite now. Mom should have left you in that basement. Nobody cares about what happened twenty years ago, Emily. Nobody. You have no proof, you have no case, and if you say a single word to Richard, I will burn your entire life to the ground.”
I smiled at her, a cold, unyielding smile that made her step back half an inch.
“I don't need to say a word to Richard, Vanessa,” I said softly. “The District Attorney will do it for me.”
May you like
I slammed the heavy door shut, slid the deadbolt into place, and walked away as Vanessa’s fists began to hammer wildly against the wood.
***
