Chapter 8 - VICTORIA CAME BACK FOR LEO
Victoria disappeared before police obtained the arrest warrant.
Her attorney claimed he did not know where she was.
Security cameras showed her leaving Chicago in a rented SUV. Her phone was found inside a trash can near O’Hare.
For two days, police searched hotels, airports, and properties connected to her family.
Leo and I moved into a secure guesthouse on the estate with two officers stationed outside.
Clara refused to leave.
“I have handled rich people’s tantrums for forty years,” she said. “I am not being frightened away now.”
On the third night, the mansion’s emergency generator activated at 1:12 a.m.
The power had not failed.
Someone triggered it manually from the service building.
The security system reset for nineteen seconds.
That was enough.
A glass door opened downstairs.
Clara heard it first.
She entered my room without knocking.
“Get Leo.”
I lifted him from bed and carried him into the reinforced dressing room while Clara called security.
Footsteps moved through the hallway.
Slow.
Careful.
Leo clung to my neck.
“Is it her?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
A voice came through the bedroom.
“James?”
Victoria.
She sounded calm.
“I only want to explain.”
I locked the dressing-room door.
“Police are on their way.”
“You’ve already destroyed my life.”
“You did that.”
Leo pressed his face against my shoulder.
Victoria moved closer to the door.
“Grant manipulated me.”
“You used the device.”
“I was trying to save us.”
“You hurt my son.”
“He was going to ruin everything.”
The words echoed through the small room.
Leo heard them.
I felt his body stiffen.
Victoria continued.
“Evelyn was going to expose Grant’s transfers from the foundation. She was going to bring down the company. The crash was supposed to frighten her, not kill her.”
My throat closed.
“You damaged her car.”
“Grant said the steering would fail only long enough to force her off the road at low speed.”
“She died.”
“I know.”
For the first time, Victoria’s voice broke.
Then she said something worse.
“Leo was never supposed to remember.”
A heavy object struck the outer bedroom door.
Clara shouted from the hallway.
Victoria screamed.
Then several voices ordered her onto the floor.
I waited until an officer identified himself through the dressing-room door before opening it.
Victoria lay handcuffed on the bedroom carpet.
Clara stood near the wall holding a brass fireplace tool like a baseball bat.
“You hit her?” I asked.
“She reached for the child’s door.”
Victoria lifted her face toward me.
Her white coat was torn at the shoulder. Her makeup had run, but she still looked at Leo as though he were an inconvenience.
“You made your father hate me,” she said.
Leo trembled.
I stepped between them.
“No,” he whispered.
I turned toward him.
His face was wet with tears, but his voice became clearer.
“You did.”
Victoria looked away.
Detective Ellis entered and told the officers to take her downstairs.
As they lifted Victoria, she stared at me.
“I loved you.”
I felt nothing.
“Evelyn trusted you.”
That was the first accusation that truly reached her.
Her face collapsed.
Then the officers led her away.
I closed the bedroom door and knelt in front of Leo.
“You were brave.”
“I was scared.”
“You can be both.”
He looked toward Clara.
“Is she staying?”
Clara lowered the fireplace tool.
“As long as you’ll have me.”
Leo nodded.
May you like
Then he reached for my hand.
For the first time since the pillow was opened, he let me lead him back toward the light.
