Chapter 7 - The Desperate Entreaty
By two o'clock on Christmas afternoon, the sun sat low and blinding over the snowdrifts of Cedar Falls.
The Mercer family name, which had held court in Black Hawk County for forty years, was disintegrating in real-time.
Corbin sat in the conference room of his silent, frozen office building, staring at three empty coffee cups.
Julianna Vance had not stayed.
The moment Corbin revealed that his corporate accounts were frozen and his equity was held under a cross-default lien, her demeanor had shifted from cold annoyance to utter revulsion.
She had gathered her luggage from the lobby, called a private car from an executive service in Des Moines, and left without saying goodbye to Elaine.
Her final words to Corbin had been delivered through the half-open window of the town car:
"You told me you held eight million in unencumbered commercial assets, Corbin."
"You’re nothing but an overleveraged boy living on your father-in-law’s military credit."
"Don't call my phone again."
Now, only Elaine remained, sitting across from her son, her emerald silk blouse wrinkled, her hands trembling as she drank cold tap water from a paper cup.
"We have to go see Clara," Elaine whispered, her voice stripped of every shred of elegance.
"What?" Corbin laughed, a bitter, hysterical bark that bounced off the glass walls.
"Clara?"
"Clara has a protective order against me, Mom!"
"If I come within one thousand yards of her, Sheriff Donahue will lock me in a cell for six months!"
"The protective order is against *you*, Corbin," Elaine said, her eyes narrowing with a desperate, cunning glint.
"It doesn't name me."
"I am Wren’s grandmother."
"I have common-law grandparental visitation rights under Iowa statutory precedent."
"I can walk onto that property and talk to Clara mother-to-mother."
Corbin rubbed his face with both hands, feeling the three-day stubble scraping his palms.
"Clara won't listen to you."
"She hates you, Mom."
"She hates me because I was protecting you!" Elaine snapped, her voice regaining a fraction of its old vitriol.
"She is a mother."
"Women understand emotional pressure."
"I will tell her that this was all a misunderstanding, that you were having a nervous breakdown brought on by corporate stress."
"I will tell her that if she drops the lien and the protective order, you will enter marital counseling."
"We just need to survive until the banks reopen on Monday, Corbin."
"Once the freeze is lifted, we can move our liquid assets into an offshore entity through my brother in Florida."
"Then we crush her in appellate court."
Corbin looked up at his mother.
He was desperate.
He had no money to retain counsel, no access to his personal checking accounts, and his credit cards had already been declined when he tried to buy lunch at the corner deli an hour earlier.
"Take my BMW," Corbin whispered.
"Don't let Everett see you coming down the lane."
Thirty minutes later, Elaine Mercer steered the black sedan into the cleared driveway of 4410 Prairie View Road.
The heavy limestone house stood peaceful beneath the winter sky.
Smoke curled gently from the stone chimney.
In the front yard, near the cedar trees, a child’s red sled sat parked against a fresh snowman that had been decorated with two charcoal eyes and a carrot nose.
The sight of that snowman made Elaine’s stomach clench with rage.
While she and her son were being destroyed in an office building, Clara was playing in the snow.
Elaine parked the car near the detached garage, smoothed her coat, and walked up the front steps.
She didn't knock with humility.
She pressed the doorbell and waited, her chin high, her hands tucked inside her leather pockets.
The door opened.
It was not Everett Langston who answered.
It was Clara.
I stood in the doorway of my home, wearing a thick wool cardigan over dark jeans, my hair tied back in a simple ponytail.
My eyes were clear, steady, and entirely free of the terror that had consumed me eighteen hours ago.
Behind me, in the warm great room, I could hear Wren giggling as my father showed her how to stack wooden blocks on the rug.
Elaine took a deep, theatrical breath and let her face crumble into an expression of maternal grief.
"Clara," she gasped, stepping forward as if to embrace me.
"Thank God you’re all right."
I did not move.
I did not step back, nor did I reach out my hands.
I stood in the threshold like an iron gate.
"Step back three paces, Elaine," I said, my voice quiet, flat, and colder than the ice on the eaves.
Elaine froze mid-stride, her arms dropping awkwardly to her sides.
"Clara, darling, please."
"You must listen to me."
"Corbin is completely broken."
"He didn't sleep a wink last night."
"He had an acute panic episode brought on by exhaustion and the financial collapse of his commercial firm."
"He didn't know what he was doing when he spoke to you yesterday."
"He didn't know what he was doing when he brought Julianna into this house?" I asked.
"That woman was an opportunist!" Elaine exclaimed, waving her hands dismissively.
"She took advantage of his vulnerability!"
"I was trying to de-escalate the situation, Clara."
"I told you to pack because I wanted to get you and Wren away from Corbin until his episode passed!"
I looked at the woman who had stood in my daughter’s nursery holding black trash bags.
I looked at the woman who had smiled while her son threatened to set the sheriff on his own baby in a blizzard.
"You are a liar, Elaine," I said.
The word was delivered without anger.
It was delivered as an objective scientific fact.
"Clara, think of Wren!" Elaine pleaded, her eyes welling with real tears now, the tears of a predator who realized the trap had snapped shut around its own leg.
"Do you want your daughter to grow up with a father who is bankrupt?"
"Do you want her to carry the shame of a ruined family name in this town?"
"If Everett enforces this cross-default note, Mercer Capital will be dissolved by the state receiver next week!"
"Corbin will lose his broker’s license!"
"We will lose our home in the country club district!"
"Then you better start packing, Elaine," I replied.
Elaine gasped, her jaw dropping.
"What?"
"You told me that exact sentence at five-forty-three yesterday afternoon," I said.
"You told me Wren and I would wake up somewhere else."
"Now, you and Corbin will wake up somewhere else."
"You heartless little bitch!" Elaine hissed, the mask of maternal concern ripping away in an instant, revealing the snarl beneath.
"We gave you everything!"
"You were a nobody from a military base!"
"You think your father can defeat our family in this town?"
"I don't think he can, Elaine," a deep voice rumbled from behind me.
Everett stepped into the entryway, holding a steaming mug of black coffee.
He didn't look at Elaine.
He looked past her, toward the county road.
"Deputy Miller is already turning into the driveway, Elaine," Everett said mildly.
"I called dispatch three minutes ago when your vehicle triggered the perimeter sensor at the gate."
"You have approximately sixty seconds to get into that German car and leave before Don Donahue adds third-degree harassment and violation of an active protective perimeter to your family’s docket."
Elaine looked toward the driveway.
A sheriff’s patrol vehicle was indeed slowing down near the stone mailbox, its amber warning lights flashing.
Elaine looked at me one last time, her eyes burning with pure, unadulterated hatred.
She turned on her heel, her leather shoes slipping on the stone step, and practically ran toward the BMW.
She climbed in, threw the car into reverse, and sped down the driveway, spraying gravel and slush against the pristine snowbanks.
I closed the oak door.
I locked the brass deadbolt.
May you like
And for the first time since yesterday afternoon, I felt the air fill my lungs completely.
***
