Chapter 6 - The Unraveling of Diane Mercer
"I did what any mother would do!" she suddenly shrieked, slamming both palms down on the table.
The outburst was so loud that Paige Vance flinched. Detective Miller took a measured step closer to the head of the table, his hand resting casually near his utility belt.
"Do you have any idea what it was like?" Diane spat, her eyes glaring directly at me with raw venom. "Your father walked out the door with a woman half his age and left me with a thirty-year mortgage, two teenage daughters, and a mountain of credit card debt! I gave you my youth! I cooked, I cleaned, I sacrificed everything!"
"Grandpa gave you child support, Diane," I reminded her calmly. "He paid off the mortgage on the house when Grandma died in 2015. You had zero debt."
"You don't understand the expenses of maintaining our lifestyle!" she yelled, her voice pitching higher into hysteria. "Marissa needed a wedding that didn't look like a welfare reception! Her husband’s family is prominent in Cincinnati! Did you want her to look like white trash? And their house! They couldn't get approved without twenty percent down! Was I supposed to let my grandchildren grow up in an apartment complex like common tenants?"
Marissa burst into violent sobs, burying her face in her arms. "Mom... you told Trent and me that the wedding and the house money came from Grandma’s life insurance! You told us you took out a second mortgage to help us! You told me Ellen sent five thousand dollars as a gift!"
"I handled the money because Ellen didn't deserve it!" Diane screamed, her finger pointing violently at my nose. "Look at her! Sitting there with her cheap little suits, writing down other people's words like a glorified typist! She had no ambition! If I had given her two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, she would have wasted it on paperback books and cheap rent! I invested it in this family! I built our reputation!"
"You didn't invest it," Grandpa intervened, his voice cracking with righteous fury. He slammed his cane against the floor with a resounding crack that made my mother jump. "You stole from your own blood, Diane. You lied to me. You told me Ellen hated me. You told me she was too proud to take my calls. You kept my granddaughter away from me for ten years so you could rob her blind!"
"Dad, you don't understand—"
"I understand that you charged your own daughter six hundred dollars a month to sleep in a cold basement while you bought a luxury SUV!" Grandpa roared, rising to his feet, his knuckles white against the curved handle of his cane. "You made her smell like ham and take out loans at eleven percent while you were sipping champagne in the front row of ballrooms paid for by her money! You are no daughter of mine!"
Diane looked around the room, searching for an ally.
She looked at Paige Vance, who stared back with disgust.
She looked at Detective Miller, who had already pulled a set of steel handcuffs from his pouch.
Finally, she looked at Marissa, her favorite child, reaching out to grasp her sleeve. "Marissa, baby... tell them. Tell them Mom did it for you. Tell them you needed that house for Lily and Owen."
Marissa pulled her arm away as if she had been touched by a hot iron. She stood up, her mascara running in dark streaks down her pale cheeks.
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"Don't touch me," Marissa choked out, backing toward the door. "You used my wedding... you used my children's home... to destroy my sister. I never want to see you again."
Diane sank back into her chair, her face contorting into an expression of utter defeat. The mask of the proud, martyr mother had completely dissolved, leaving behind a desperate, cornered thief.
