Chapter 6 - Alyssa's Desperate Gambit
By two o'clock that afternoon, the gates of Larkin Ridge were besieged by three satellite broadcast trucks and a dozen paparazzi photographers.
The story had metastasized far beyond Oakmont. Wade Larkin was a national figure in college athletics—a three-time championship coach whose stoic integrity had made him a folk hero across the South. The news that he had secretly married the "black sheep" daughter of a prominent legal dynasty, while simultaneously blowing the whistle on a multi-million-dollar charity scam, was leading the afternoon segments on ESPN and CNN.
Alyssa, however, was not a woman to retreat into the shadows without attempting to burn down the entire forest.
At four in the afternoon, while Marcus was at the courthouse filing the final eviction notices, Wade’s private phone buzzed on the kitchen island.
It was the university athletic director, Frank Callahan.
Wade answered on speaker. "Frank."
*"Wade, we’ve got a massive problem down at the athletics complex,"* Callahan’s voice was strained, breathless with anxiety. *"Your sister-in-law. Alyssa Prescott. She just bypassed security at the north concourse with a local news crew in tow. She’s locked herself in the team boardroom and refuses to leave until she speaks with you on camera."*
Wade’s eyes narrowed into slits. "Did you call campus security?"
*"She told the guards that if anyone touches her, she’ll scream assault and claim she’s three months pregnant with your child, Wade. The press is already outside the glass doors. She’s completely unhinged. If this blows up on the six o'clock news, the Chancellor is going to suspend you pending an inquiry. You have to get down here."*
A cold wave of dread washed over me. I stood up from the couch, my heart hammering against my ribs. "A child? Wade, she’s trying to destroy your reputation. She knows the university can't tolerate a scandal like that."
Wade turned to me, his expression completely calm, even terrifyingly serene. He reached for his truck keys on the counter.
"Let’s go, Mary."
"Me?" I blinked. "You want me to come with you?"
"You're my wife," Wade said simply, taking my hand and pulling me toward the coat rack. "She tried to hide behind your silence for thirty years. We aren't hiding anymore. We walk in the front door together."
Twenty minutes later, Wade’s heavy GMC pulled into the private coaches' lot behind the university’s massive athletic facility.
The hallway outside the main football offices was swarming with campus police officers, nervous athletic department staff, and two local camera crews with microphones resting on their shoulders. Through the frosted glass walls of the executive boardroom, I could see Alyssa pacing back and forth like a caged predator.
She was wearing a pristine white suit—a visual statement of innocence—and her makeup was immaculate. When the heavy double doors at the end of the hall swung open and Wade strode in with my hand tucked firmly in the crook of his elbow, the cameras immediately swiveled toward us.
"Coach Larkin! Is it true Alyssa Prescott is carrying your child?"
"Mary! Did you force your husband to cancel the endowment check?"
Wade ignored the shouting reporters entirely. He didn't even look at the lenses. With two campus security captains clearing a path, he walked straight to the boardroom door, turned the brass knob, and pushed it open.
Alyssa spun around, her eyes wild, a bright, manic smile instantly stretching across her crimson lips.
"Wade!" she cried out, taking two fast steps toward him with open arms, completely ignoring me standing beside him. "Thank God you’re here. These... these animals wouldn't let me call you privately! Wade, you have to tell them the truth. Tell them about our weekend in Savannah! Tell them how you promised you would leave this pathetic farce of a marriage once the season ended!"
The room fell into an icy, horrified silence.
The news cameras through the glass were rolling, capturing every word through the open doorway.
Wade didn't move. He stood tall, looking down at Alyssa as if she were an insect crawling across a clean floor.
"Savannah?" Wade said, his voice flat and perfectly amplified in the quiet room. "You mean the weekend of June fourteenth?"
"Yes!" Alyssa cried, her voice trembling with manufactured relief. "The weekend at the riverfront inn! You know what we shared, Wade! You can't let your sister-in-law's pathetic jealousy ruin what we built!"
Wade turned slightly toward the doorway. "Captain Miller."
A grizzled, sixty-year-old campus security chief stepped into the room, holding a thick manila envelope and a portable tablet.
"On June fourteenth," Wade said, looking back at Alyssa, "I was in Birmingham, Alabama, undergoing an eight-hour spinal fusion consultation at the Andrews Orthopedic Institute, accompanied by four university surgeons and my wife, Mary. Here are the hospital admission records, the surgical prep logs, and the sworn affidavits of three board-certified neurosurgeons."
Marcus Vance stepped smoothly around the frame of the door, placing the medical records directly on the conference table with a sharp, heavy slap.
Alyssa’s mouth remained half-open, her eyes darting between the thick legal documents and Wade’s face.
"Furthermore," Wade continued, his voice dropping into that chilling, unyielding tone that made four hundred people freeze the night before, "on June fourteenth, you were at the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, staying in Suite 402 under the name of your foundation's travel account, accompanied by one Bradley Vance—a married real estate developer who happens to be under indictment for municipal bank fraud."
Marcus Vance smiled thinly. "Bradley is my estranged cousin, Alyssa. And he has an unfortunate habit of bragging about his mistress on private yacht forums."
Alyssa took a stumbling step backward until her hips slammed against the heavy mahogany conference table. The white suit that was supposed to make her look like a martyr suddenly looked like a shroud.
"You... you spied on me?" she whispered, her voice shrill and cracked.
"No, Alyssa," I spoke up, stepping forward until I was standing directly in front of her.
For the first time in my life, I looked down at my older sister. She was shorter than me without her heels. Smaller. Shriveled by the weight of her own deceit.
"Wade didn't spy on you," I said. "The federal prosecutors did. When you submitted your foundation's travel reimbursements last month, you accidentally attached Bradley’s personal credit card receipt instead of your own. You were so sloppy, Alyssa. You were so arrogant, you thought the world would simply look at your face and never check the math."
Through the glass wall behind us, the camera operators slowly lowered their lenses, realizing they weren't broadcasting a tragic romance—they were filming the public execution of a criminal grifter.
Alyssa looked around the room, desperate for an ally, a friendly face, a single person she could charm or manipulate. There was no one. The university staff looked at her with cold contempt; the reporters were frantically scribbling down the names of the Las Vegas resort and the indicted developer.
"You ruined me," Alyssa spat, her eyes turning into dark, venomous slits as she glared at me. "You were supposed to be nothing, Mary! You were the ugly, quiet one who stayed home! You had no right to take my life!"
"I didn't take your life, Alyssa," I said, my voice filled with a profound, liberating pity. "You threw it away for gold leaf on rotten wood. And I’m finally done paying for the paint."
Two Oakmont city police detectives stepped through the crowd in the hallway, their badges gleaming on their dark blazers.
May you like
"Alyssa Prescott?" the lead detective said, stepping into the boardroom with a pair of steel handcuffs hanging from his belt. "We have an arrest warrant issued by the State Attorney General’s Office for three counts of grand larceny, four counts of wire fraud, and falsification of non-profit corporate records. Please place your hands behind your back."
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