Chapter 6: Vanessa Comes Alone
She arrived the following morning without her parents and without calling ahead.
Her car appeared at the gate at half past eight.
I saw it from the greenhouse window and I took my time walking back to the house.
The gate was closed.
She pressed the intercom button on the post.
A feature Thomas had installed that I hadn't thought to mention to anyone.
"Leah." Her voice crackled through the small speaker.
"Please open the gate.
I came alone.
I just want to talk."
I pressed the button.
"Say what you need to say from there."
A pause.
"That's not fair."
"Open conversations by telling someone their mother-in-law has to be removed so that her son will come around.
Then we can discuss what's fair."
Silence.
Long enough that I thought she might leave.
She didn't.
"Jared showed me the transcript," she finally said.
"Then you know what I have."
"That conversation with my father was taken out of context."
"Which part?"
Another pause.
"He was frustrated.
He says things he doesn't mean when he's frustrated."
"He said it eleven days before my husband passed away, Vanessa.
Thomas was in hospice care.
Your father was discussing how to access my inheritance before Thomas was even gone."
No answer.
"I want to talk to you about the transfer," she said.
"The one hundred and eighty thousand.
I want to explain."
"Jared already explained it."
"Jared doesn't know all of it."
I set down my gardening gloves on the porch rail.
"What does that mean?"
"It means—" Her voice dropped.
"It means my father structured that transfer without telling Jared the full details.
Jared signed documents he didn't read carefully enough.
My father told him it was a standard investment structure.
Jared trusted him."
"And you?"
The intercom was quiet.
"Vanessa.
Did you know the details of that transfer when it happened?"
"I knew we needed capital."
"That is not what I asked."
The silence stretched long enough to answer.
"You knew," I said.
"My father was in serious trouble," she said, and for the first time her voice cracked.
"He owed money to people who were not patient.
We needed to move fast.
I thought — I told myself it would be repaid before anyone noticed.
Before Thomas—" She stopped.
"Before Thomas died and I went through the accounts," I said.
"Yes."
I sat down in the rocking chair.
"Do you love my son?" I asked.
The question seemed to catch her completely off guard.
A long pause.
"Yes," she said.
"Whatever else I've done, the answer to that is yes."
"Then hear me carefully." I kept my voice level.
"Mitchell has been using your marriage as a financial instrument.
He used Jared to access money that did not belong to either of you.
He is currently holding a commercial property that has produced no return, funded partly by money he took from a dying man's account.
And he has been planning since before Thomas passed to access this property as well."
Nothing from the intercom.
"If you love Jared," I said, "the most important thing you can do right now is stop protecting your father and start protecting your husband.
Because when the full accounting of this comes out — and it will come out — Jared's name is on every document."
"What do you mean when it comes out?"
"Dennis Harte is Thomas's attorney.
He has been Thomas's attorney for two years.
He has everything documented and witnessed.
What happens with it depends on choices made in the next few days."
The intercom clicked off.
I watched the gate.
For a moment I thought she had walked back to her car.
Then her voice returned, quieter than before.
All the sharpness gone out of it.
"What do you want from us, Leah?"
I rocked once in the chair.
"I want my son back," I said.
"The rest we can figure out."
The gate opened.
She walked up the driveway alone, her arms at her sides, her expensive sunglasses folded in one hand.
She looked smaller without her parents behind her.
Younger.
She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.
I looked at her for a long moment.
Then I stood up and opened the door.
May you like
"Come inside," I said.
"I'll make coffee."
