Chapter 7 - The Brother’s Betrayal
Before Vanessa could construct her next lie, the front door rattled open once more.
My younger brother, Mark, rushed into the foyer, his necktie loosened and his suit jacket rumpled from a frantic drive.
"Vanessa! What happened? Dad called my office and said—"
Mark's voice cut off abruptly as he spotted me standing in the center of the corridor.
"Claire?" he whispered, his eyes darting to our mother huddled on the floor.
"Mom? What... what is going on here?"
Mark took two hurried steps toward our mother, reaching out as if to help her up.
"Do not touch her," I snapped, the ice in my voice stopping him dead in his tracks.
Mark recoiled, his face flushing with a mixture of guilt and bewilderment.
"Claire, what are you talking about? She is my mother too!"
"Is she?" I asked, pointing toward the heavy wooden bat on the floor.
"Because while you were at your office orchestrating land deals, your wife used a thirty-two-inch slugger to cave in Mom's orbit."
Mark looked down at the bat, then at Vanessa, whose face was twisted into an ugly, cornered grimace.
"Vanessa... you said you were just going to talk to her," Mark whispered, his voice cracking with horrifying realization.
"You said you were going to show her the appraisal numbers and convince her to sign the Fairview agreement!"
The entire room fell into a deathly stillness.
Sergeant Brooks raised his eyebrows, pulling a small leather notebook and pen from his uniform pocket.
"Keep talking, sir," Brooks murmured quietly.
"Mark, shut your mouth!" Vanessa shrieked, lunging forward to grab his arm.
"Shut up! She is recording everything! Don't say another word!"
Mark pulled his arm away from his wife, staring at her as if seeing a monster unmasked for the first time.
"You told me Mom was being stubborn," Mark stammered, his eyes filling with tears as he looked at Mom's swollen eye.
"You told me your father was sending an officer just to keep the peace while we talked!"
"You lied to him, Vanessa," I said, taking a step toward my cowardly brother.
"And you, Mark, were too weak, too greedy, and too pathetic to check on your own mother."
"You let this viper take over Dad's house, you let her isolate Mom in the back room, and now you let her brutalize her for a million-dollar highway buyout."
"I didn't know!" Mark cried, dropping to his knees several feet away from Mom.
"Mom, I swear to God I didn't know she would hurt you! I just wanted the business loan for the new firm!"
My mother didn't look at him.
She kept her face turned toward the wall, her tears soaking into the fabric of her torn green cardigan.
"You broke your father's heart, Mark," she whispered, her voice barely louder than a dying breath.
"He worked thirty years in the steel mill so you could go to law school... and you sold me out for a loan."
Vanessa suddenly sneered, realizing that Mark's collapse had stripped away her last shred of plausible deniability.
"She wasn't going to sign, Mark!" Vanessa shouted, dropping all pretense of gentility.
"She was going to donate the Fairview parcel to a public park trust! She was going to throw away one point four million dollars!"
"She is an old, useless woman who sits in that room rotting away while we pay the property taxes!"
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"That is enough," Sergeant Brooks barked, stepping directly into Vanessa's personal space.
"Turn around and put your hands behind your back, ma'am."
