Chapter 3 - THE ATTORNEY'S ARRIVAL
Within twenty minutes, a sleek black sedan pulled up to my curb.
Marcus Holloway, my attorney and a man who had handled my late husband’s estate with the precision of a master surgeon, stepped out of the vehicle. He was wearing his usual tailored charcoal suit, carrying a heavy leather briefcase, and wearing an expression that suggested he had just been called to handle a crime scene—which, technically, he had.
Mrs. Gable was still standing near the sidewalk, clutching her poodle’s leash, eager to give an eyewitness deposition to anyone willing to listen.
Marcus walked briskly up my front path, stepping past Lennox’s designer suitcases as if they were trash bags on the curb. He pushed open the front door, surveyed the broken ceramic vase on the floor, and looked at the red, swelling imprint across my left cheek.
“Bessie,” Marcus said, his voice deep and controlled. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve been better, Marcus,” I said, my voice steady. “Lennox just struck me across the face because I refused to let them move in after she squandered six hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”
Lennox’s bravado evaporated instantly, replaced by a frantic, panicky edge.
“It was an accident!” she babbled, her voice climbing an octave. “She provoked me! She was screaming at us, threatening to throw us out on the street! It was self-defense!”
Marcus turned his cold, calculating gaze onto Lennox, slowly adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses.
“Self-defense against a sixty-four-year-old woman standing in her own foyer?” Marcus asked dryly. “Mrs. Gable across the street is currently giving a detailed audio-visual statement to my dashcam recorder, detailing every single second of that assault. Assault and battery in the state of South Carolina is a misdemeanor, Mrs. Mitchell—or should I say, soon-to-be-former family member.”
Terrence dropped his head into his hands, groaning audibly. “Marcus, please. Don’t involve the police. We’re family. Can’t we settle this like adults?”
“Your wife assaulted your mother, Terrence,” Marcus said sharply. “And based on what Bessie just told me about that six-hundred-thousand-dollar home sale, your financial liabilities are about to get a whole lot more complicated.”
Marcus turned back to me. “Bessie, do you want to press charges for the physical assault?”
May you like
I touched my cheek once more, feeling the steady, cold pulse of resolve.
“Yes, Marcus,” I said. “File the charges. And let’s begin the audit.”
