Chapter 18 - The Face Across the Glass
Before we could drive five hours into the Blue Ridge Mountains, Marcus insisted we needed one critical piece of leverage: the signed healthcare power of attorney. And the only person who could grant it without a thirty-day court probate battle was Victoria herself.
The Henrico County Detention Center smelled of industrial pine cleaner, stale grease, and cold concrete. It was a world entirely divorced from the hand-loomed rugs and crystal flutes Victoria Vance had commanded her entire life.
When she was brought into the visiting booth, wearing the coarse orange twill of a state inmate, she moved with the slow, robotic stiffness of a broken marionette. Her manicured nails had been cut down to the quick; her platinum hair was pulled back in a severe, unstyled knot. But the moment she sat down and picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver on the other side of the glass, the sneer returned.
"Come to gloat, Eleanor?" her voice sounded tinny and hollow through the receiver. "Has the darling little martyr come to admire her handiwork? Camille won't even take my collect calls. They tell me she’s answering phones at an insurance agency. My daughter, working for minimum wage like a common clerk."
"Camille is earning an honest living for the first time in her life," I said calmly, holding the receiver steady. "I’m not here to talk about Camille, Victoria. I’m here to talk about Julian."
The sneer vanished. The color drained from her cheeks with such violent speed that she looked as gray as the cinder blocks behind her. Her hand tightened on the receiver until her knuckles turned ivory.
"Where did you hear that name?" she whispered, her eyes darting nervously toward the guard standing near the door.
"Box 412," I answered. "Grandfather Arthur’s unredacted trust. The six-thousand-dollar quarterly payments to St. Anthony’s. The fake death certificate you signed twenty-five years ago."
Victoria let out a shaky, brittle laugh that had no humor in it. "You think you understand the world, Eleanor, but you know nothing. You think you were abandoned? You were born with a defective heart, yes, but at least your mind was intact. Julian was born broken. He was born with severe cognitive trauma and a heart defect far worse than yours. Do you have any idea what that would have done to the Vance family name? Arthur was running for state senate. The society circles in Richmond were unforgiving. A defective heir would have destroyed everything."
"So you buried him alive," I said, disgust rising like bile in my throat. "You forged his death, stashed him in the mountains, and stole his inheritance to buy couture gowns and debutante balls for Camille."
"Arthur agreed to it!" she hissed, leaning forward, pressing her forehead against the scratched glass. "Arthur knew we couldn't handle the shame! He set up the fund, but he went soft before he died—he wanted Julian acknowledged in the will. I couldn't let him undo thirty years of status with one stroke of an old man's pen!"
"You didn't protect the family, Victoria. You protected your ego," I said, sliding the legal guardianship transfer form against the glass panel. "Sign this. Relinquish all parental and custodial rights to Julian Vance over to Reed and me. If you don't, Marcus will deliver the forged death certificate directly to the attorney general within the hour. That five-year plea deal you just signed? It will turn into twenty-five for interstate fraud and child endangerment."
She stared at the document, her chest heaving. The pristine facade of the Richmond matriarch had finally crumbled into pure, pathetic desperation. With a trembling hand, she signaled the guard to witness her signature on the form passed under the slot.
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"He won't know who you are," she spat, her voice cracking as she pushed the papers back. "He doesn't know what a mother is. He doesn't know what a sister is. You're chasing a phantom."
"He knows what abandonment feels like," I replied, standing up and hanging the receiver onto the cradle. "And unlike you, I know how to fix it."
