Chapter 7 - The Desperate Negotiation
By 8:00 PM that evening, the apartment was locked tight, clean, and quiet.
Dad had spent four hours replacing the hardware on the front door, while I unpacked my mother’s clothes and laid them neatly back into her dresser drawers. Susan was still in the hospital, but her physician had assured us that her vitals had stabilized and she would be discharged the following morning.
I was sitting on the sofa, sipping black tea, when my phone buzzed on the coffee table.
*Unknown Caller.*
I looked at Marcus Vance, who was sitting across from me at the kitchen island, reviewing the forensic documents. Marcus gave me a subtle nod and reached over to tap the record button on his legal recorder.
I put the phone on speaker. "Hello?"
"Claire?"
Ethan's voice was hoarse, ragged, and breathless. The background noise sounded like the clatter of a cheap diner—dishes clattering, muffled voices, an espresso machine hissing.
"Ethan," I said evenly.
"Claire, God, please don't hang up," he pleaded. The arrogant, slick tone from that morning was entirely gone, replaced by a desperate, sniveling panic. "I’m sitting in an Applebee's in Jersey City. I don't even have my car. Arthur dropped me as a client, Claire. He said the notary’s confession makes it an open-and-shut criminal indictment. He told me the DA is issuing an arrest warrant by tomorrow morning."
"Your attorney gave you accurate legal advice," I said, taking a slow sip of tea. "That’s rare for someone you hire."
"Claire, listen to me!" he sobbed, his voice cracking. "We can fix this! We don't have to let the state destroy us! I’ll sign the deed back to you right now. Tonight! We’ll go to a 24-hour notary in Manhattan. I’ll sign over the apartment entirely. You can keep the whole thing! Just tell the District Attorney that this was a misunderstanding! Tell them we worked it out internally!"
"And the nine hundred thousand dollars, Ethan?"
"It’s in the escrow account!" he cried. "I haven't spent it! The title company locked it down! You can have it all back, Claire! Every cent! Just don't let them put me in prison. You know what they do to guys like me in Rikers? I won't survive a week, Claire. Please. Ten years. Think about ten years of our lives!"
"I am thinking about ten years," I said, my voice dropping so low it sent a shiver through the phone line. "I’m thinking about the ten years I spent standing on my feet until my shins bruised, while you were practicing how to forge my name on scrap paper. I’m thinking about how you laughed while Salvatore Costello stamped that fraudulent deed. Did you think about our ten years when you grabbed my seventy-one-year-old mother by her nightgown and dragged her across the linoleum?"
"That was Margaret!" he screamed hysterically, instantly turning on his own mother without a second thought. "It was her idea, Claire! I swear to God! She was the one drowning in debt! She said we had to get the money out of New York or Citibank would take everything! She forced me to do it!"
"And Chloe Vance?" I asked coolly. "Did Margaret force you into her bed, too?"
Dead silence on the other end.
The only sound was Ethan's ragged, hitching breath.
"You thought I was stupid, Ethan," I continued, speaking with an icy, surgical detachment. "You thought because I smell like flour and work with my hands that I didn't see you. You thought I was just an ATM that baked bread. But you forgot one thing."
"Claire... please..."
"A baker knows how to measure," I said. "And I have measured every single ounce of misery you brought into this family. Tomorrow morning, when the detectives find you in Jersey City, do not call this number again. Talk to the public defender."
I tapped the red button, cutting him off mid-sob.
Marcus Vance stopped the audio recorder, looked across the table at me, and raised his mug of coffee in a silent, respectful toast.
"Remind me never to cross you, Claire," Marcus said with a grim smile.
May you like
"I’m not crossing anyone, Marcus," I replied, looking toward the hallway where my mother’s bedroom door stood open, waiting for her return. "I’m just taking out the trash."
***
