Chapter 8 - THE WHISPERS IN THE CORRIDOR
By Wednesday, the fallout from Richard’s arrest had permeated every tier of the city’s high-society networks, turning the exclusive country clubs and charity boards where he had once held sway into breeding grounds for gossip and scandal.
I was sitting in the private parlor of my father’s estate, reviewing the updated custody papers with our family attorney, Mr. Henderson, when the heavy oak pocket doors slid open to reveal Arthur Sterling looking grim.
“You have a visitor in the receiving room,” Arthur announced, tossing a sleek leather handbag onto the velvet settee. “Though ‘visitor’ is a generous term for someone who just spent twenty minutes trying to bully my butler into letting her past the security gates.”
“Who is it?” I asked, not looking up from the legal clauses defining sole guardianship of Grace.
“Eleanor Vance,” Arthur replied, naming Richard’s mother, a woman who had spent the last three years treating me like an unrefined intruder who didn’t belong in her family’s social circle. “She claims she didn’t know anything about the embezzlement or the incident on Route 9, and she’s demanding to see her granddaughter before her son’s arraignment tomorrow morning.”
I closed the legal folder with a soft snap and looked up at my attorney. “Mr. Henderson, does Eleanor Vance have any legal standing to demand visitation rights under the current emergency protective order?”
Henderson adjusted his glasses, scanning the paperwork on his lap. “None whatsoever, Abigail. The emergency protective order issued by the federal judge explicitly revokes all familial access for anyone associated with the defendant, pending the outcome of the criminal trial.”
“Show her in anyway,” I said calmly, standing up and handing Grace to her bassinet to make sure she was comfortable before turning back to face the double doors. “If Eleanor wants to defend her son’s legacy, she needs to do it while looking at the evidence she spent years ignoring.”
A moment later, Eleanor Vance marched into the parlor, her designer tweed suit immaculate, her face twisted into a mask of indignant fury that had clearly served her well in high-society power struggles for decades.
“This is an outrage!” Eleanor announced before she even reached the center of the Persian rug, her voice ringing sharp and shrill against the wood-paneled walls. “Dragging my son through the mud with these absurd federal charges, locking him in a holding cell like a common criminal, and now refusing to let a grandmother see her own flesh and blood!”
“Your son isn’t a common criminal, Eleanor,” I replied, my voice chillingly level as I crossed my arms and met her gaze directly. “He’s an uncommon criminal who tried to murder his wife and newborn child to cover up three million dollars in corporate theft.”
Eleanor flinched slightly at the directness of my words, but quickly recovered her haughty posture, lifting her chin with an aristocratic sniff. “Lies! Fabricated accusations concocted by your father’s legal team to protect their own failing logistics chain! Richard told me everything before his arrest—you were unstable, erratic, suffering from severe postpartum delusions that made you wander off into the mountains on your own accord!”
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“Is that what he told you?” I asked, walking over to the mahogany desk and picking up a laminated copy of the St. Jude’s Hospital admission records and the federal forensic accounting summary. “Because the federal judge seemed remarkably unimpressed by his creative writing skills when we played the dashcam footage in court on Monday.”
Eleanor’s eyes darted across the papers I placed on the coffee table between us, her hand twitching involuntarily as she recognized the official seals of the United States District Court.
