Chapter 6 - The Midnight Departure
I walked past Landon without looking at him.
He didn't move. He stood frozen in the center of the nursery, his fists balled at his sides, breathing heavily like an animal backed into a corner. Harper had retreated into the hallway, leaning against the wall, weeping quietly into her hands as she frantically unclasped my mother’s pearl pendant and dropped it onto the floorboards.
I didn't bend down to pick it up. That jewelry was evidence now.
Evelyn glared at me as I passed her, her lips drawn into a thin, bloodless line. “You will regret this until your dying day, Greer. You have no idea what you’ve started.”
“No, Evelyn,” I said, descending the grand staircase. “You have no idea what Landon finished.”
When I stepped through the front doors, the cool night air hit my face, shocking my lungs with sweet, pure oxygen. Outside on the gravel drive sat two patrol cruisers, their red and blue lights painting the dark pine trees in rhythmic pulses.
Officer Miller stepped forward, nodding politely. “Mrs. Maddox?”
“Yes. Thank you, Officer.”
“We’ll escort you to Ms. Sterling’s office downtown.”
I secured June into her car seat in the back of my SUV. Her little eyelashes fluttered, but she slept through the sound of the engine turning over. As I backed down the driveway, I looked up at the second-floor nursery window.
Landon was standing there, framed by the warm nursery light, staring down at me through the glass. His face was unreadable in the shadows, but his posture wasn't defeated. It was rigid. Calculating.
Forty minutes later, I walked into the glass-and-steel offices of Sterling & Associates on the forty-second floor overlooking Lake Michigan.
Maeve Sterling was waiting for me. She was a woman in her late fifties, with sharp silver-streaked hair, wearing a charcoal wool suit. She had a bottle of warm water waiting for June’s formula and a thick leather-bound binder resting on the glass conference table.
“You held your ground beautifully,” Maeve said, shaking my hand before gently checking on June. “Most women would have broken down or screamed.”
“I’ll scream when it’s over,” I said, sitting down. “What’s our position?”
Maeve opened the binder. Inside were dozens of bank statements, corporate filings, and property deeds.
“Landon was more desperate than you realized, Greer,” Maeve said, turning a document toward me. “The photoshoot wasn't just about custody. It was about survival.”
I looked at the header on the document: *CRESTVIEW CAPITAL INVESTMENTS – ESCROW DEFICIT AUDIT.*
“What is this?”
“Landon embezzled four point two million dollars from his firm’s client trust account over the last fourteen months,” Maeve said bluntly. “He funneled it through a shell entity registered under Harper Quinn’s maiden name.”
My stomach dropped. “Why?”
“To cover massive margins on speculative real estate investments in Austin that collapsed six months ago,” Maeve explained. “The audit is scheduled for Monday. Landon knew that if you filed for divorce under normal circumstances, your forensic accountants would discover the missing funds immediately. But if he had you declared mentally incompetent and committed to a long-term psychiatric facility…”
The realization hit me with the force of a freight train.
“He would be appointed the sole conservator of my estate,” I whispered.
“Exactly,” Maeve confirmed. “He could tap into your father’s trust to replace the stolen four million before the firm’s auditors ever noticed.”
“And Harper?”
“Harper was his accomplice, but she was also his insurance policy. If the plan worked, she got forty percent of the payout.” Maeve closed the file with a decisive snap. “Tomorrow morning at nine, Landon thinks he’s filing an ex-parte petition for sole custody. Instead, we are serving him with an emergency petition for divorce, an order of protection, and a criminal referral to the Department of Justice.”
Suddenly, Maeve’s landline phone rang.
Maeve answered, listening in silence for ten seconds. Her expression hardened into stone.
She set the receiver down.
“What is it?” I asked, terror spiking in my throat.
“That was the 18th Precinct,” Maeve said slowly. “Thirty minutes after you left the house, Landon reported a break-in. He claims someone stole two million dollars in unregistered bearer bonds from his private home safe.”
“There were no bearer bonds in that house,” I said.
May you like
“He knows that,” Maeve said. “He told the police that the only other person with the combination to that safe was your brother, Julian. And Julian was arrested twenty minutes ago at O’Hare Airport.”
***
