Chapter 3 - The Art of WarThe headline glaring from Eleanor’s phone screen read: WHITMORE FOUNDATION CO-CHAIR LAUNCHES INTERNAL INVESTIGATION INTO MISSING MILLIONS.
Eleanor dropped her phone as if it burned her. “What have you done?” she hissed.
“I placed a freeze on all Foundation accounts at 9:00 PM,” I explained calmly. “I also alerted the Board of Directors that I had uncovered irregularities in your personal expense reports over the last five years. There will be an emergency board meeting on Monday morning. And since you just confessed to fraud in my kitchen—” I pointed to the small, blinking blue light on the counter’s smart-home hub, “—which is fully integrated with my home security recording system, I think your time as a respected socialite is officially over.”
Grant fell to his knees, literally sobbing now, grabbing at the scattered papers on the floor as if he could un-forge my signature. “Amelia, please. Please. I didn’t know the whole truth. Chloe lied to me too. She wore a silicone belly! I felt it kick, I swear I did!”
“You felt a battery-operated motor, Grant. They sell them online for actors,” I said, feeling a strange mix of disgust and pity for the man I once thought I loved. “You were too blinded by your own ego to see you were being played by a grifter and your own mother.”
“Amelia, listen to me,” Eleanor’s tone suddenly shifted. The arrogance vanished, replaced by a desperate, sickening sweetness. “We are family. Oliver needs his grandmother. He needs his father. If you go to the police, the scandal will destroy Oliver’s future. We can fix this quietly. I will step down from the Foundation. I will give you full control. Just… delete the recordings. Withdraw the investigation.”
It was the ultimate gaslight. After years of treating me like dirt, after trying to steal my dignity, my home, and my sanity, she was trying to use my son as a shield.
“Oliver is asleep upstairs,” I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “He is safe, he is loved, and he will never spend another second alone with either of you. You tried to convince the world I was crazy. You tried to make me believe I was responsible for a dead baby. You wanted a war, Eleanor? You brought a knife to a drone strike.”
I picked up my cell phone and dialed a number. It rang once.
“David,” I said to my attorney. “They’re both here. They’ve admitted to everything on tape.”
“Excellent,” David’s voice echoed through the speaker. “The police are already en route to Chloe Bennett’s apartment. She panicked when the clinic called her to verify the funds and tried to flee to the airport. TSA stopped her. She’s currently singing like a canary in an interrogation room, blaming the entire conspiracy on Eleanor and Grant.”
Eleanor let out a guttural sound, clutching her chest. Grant just sat on the floor, rocking back and forth.
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“You have until morning to pack your things, Grant,” I said, ending the call. “David has already filed the emergency restraining order and the divorce papers. If you or your mother are on this property when the sun comes up, I will have you arrested for trespassing before the FBI even gets here for the wire fraud.”
Eleanor stared at me, her face pale and aged a decade in ten minutes. For the first time in her life, she had no snappy comeback. She turned and walked out into the rain, leaving her son crying on my kitchen floor. I didn't offer him a towel.
