Chapter 14 - The Price of Clean Money
"We're leaving," Megan said.
She was packing a suitcase on our bed, her movements frantic, jerky. Lily was downstairs with Rachel, who had rushed over the moment I called her.
"Megan, wait. Let’s think about this," I said, though my own mind was spinning.
"Think about what, David?!" she screamed, dropping a stack of Lily's shirts onto the bed. "A woman approached you and our daughter in broad daylight! They are watching us! Your mother is dying, she has nothing left to lose, and she is using whatever money or influence she has left to terrorize us!"
"If we run, we lose the only place we've felt safe," I argued, though the argument felt weak even to me. "Miller is looking into the license plate of the sedan. I gave him the partial description. We have security cameras arriving tomorrow. We can fortify the house."
"I don't want to live in a fortress, David! I wanted a home!" Megan sobbed, burying her face in her hands.
I walked over and wrapped my arms around her. She shook against my chest, her tears soaking through my shirt. The anger inside me was mutating into something dark, something desperate. My mother had stolen my childhood. She had stolen our first apartment. Now, she was stealing the yellow door.
The phone in my pocket buzzed. It was an unknown number.
I hesitated, then answered it. "Who is this?"
"David. It's Paul."
I breathed a sigh of relief. Megan’s brother, Paul, had been helping us keep tabs on the legal side of things through his contacts.
"Paul, tell me you have good news," I said, putting the phone on speaker so Megan could hear.
"I don't, David. I’m sorry," Paul’s voice sounded grim, stripped of its usual lightheartedness. "I just got off the phone with a contact at the state attorney’s office. Eleanor’s petition for medical parole was approved this afternoon. Because of her terminal diagnosis, they are releasing her to a private hospice care facility."
Megan gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
"Where?" I asked, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ached. "Which facility?"
"That's the catch," Paul said. "It’s a private residence. Registered under a trust. The trustee is Carol Vance. David... they are bringing her to a house in Oak Park. That’s less than fifteen minutes from you."
"They're bringing her back here," Megan whispered, her eyes wide with terror. "She's coming to finish what she started."
"There's more," Paul continued, his voice dropping. "I ran a search on the trust that purchased the Oak Park house. The funds didn't come from Carol. They came from an offshore account that was opened three years ago, right before your mother was arrested. David, the police didn't recover all the money. Eleanor hid a massive portion of it. She has resources, and she’s spending them now."
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The money we used for our house—the "recovered" money the court had awarded us as victims—was a drop in the bucket. My mother had played us. She had let us think we won, let us buy our beautiful little brick house, let us feel safe, all while she held the real vault key in her hand.
"She didn't just hide the money to keep it," I said, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "She hid it to use against us when she got out."
