Chapter 10 - New Year’s Eve in Scarsdale
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At six o’clock sharp on New Year’s Eve, a black town car dropped Diane and me at the front walkway of Brenda and Greg Miller’s sprawling center-hall colonial in Scarsdale.
Wreaths of fresh pine and white fairy lights twinkled in every window—paid for, I now knew, by the $340,000 "finder’s fee" Greg and Brenda had skimmed off the sale of my late father’s Queens warehouse two years ago.
Before I even rang the bell, the front door swung open.
Brenda stood in the foyer wearing a sequined emerald cocktail dress, a brittle, tight smile plastered across her heavily made-up face. Behind her in the living room archway stood her husband, Greg, holding a glass of scotch with white knuckles—and right beside the fireplace stood Marcus.
Marcus had showered and changed into one of his spare suits he kept at Greg’s house, trying desperately to project his old, commanding presence, though the raw fury and panic burning in his dark eyes when he saw Diane Sterling step through the front door right behind me nearly choked him.
"Merry—er, Happy New Year, Clara," Brenda said tightly, peering past my shoulder toward the empty driveway. "Where is Leo? And what is she doing in my house?"
"Leo is spending a quiet New Year’s Eve in Manhattan with family who don't steal from his trust fund, Brenda," I said pleasantly, stepping into the warm foyer and handing her the silver foil-wrapped champagne box. "And you know Diane Sterling—my father’s estate attorney. Since Greg invited us to discuss family business tonight, I thought it was only polite to bring my counsel along so Greg doesn't have to bill me for his time."
Greg Miller stepped forward, his ruddy face flushing dark red as he shut the heavy front door and threw the lock.
"Let’s cut the theatrics, Clara," Greg said in his booming courtroom voice, gesturing toward the dining room table where instead of china plates, four manila legal folders sat laid out across the mahogany wood. "You had your fun pulling that little stunt at Manhattan Private Bank and selling the Sycamore Lane house behind Marcus’s back. And sending those private photos to Eleanor Hargrove was a nasty, vindictive move that just cost your husband a seven-figure partnership."
"My husband cost himself his partnership when he lost four million dollars of a client’s pension fund and forged my signature on a two-million-dollar mortgage with his mistress’s notary stamp, Greg," I replied calmly, pulling out the chair at the head of the dining table and sitting down without taking off my cashmere coat.
"Prove it!" Marcus snarled, slamming both palms down on the opposite end of the dining table and leaning toward me, his face contorted with rage. "You can't prove I signed that Power of Attorney! A handwriting expert takes eighteen months in New York Supreme Court, and while we’re tied up in contested divorce litigation, Greg will file a lis pendens freeze on every cent of that $3.7 million at Manhattan Private as disputed marital property!"
"That’s right, Clara," Brenda chimed in viciously, crossing her arms over her sequined chest as she stood behind her brother’s chair. "You think you’re so smart because your daddy left you a warehouse? Marcus supported you for five years while you sat on your ass playing mommy! Here is the deal Greg drew up today: you wire two million to cover the Hargrove escrow shortfall before midnight tonight, you give Marcus fifty percent of the remaining cash, and in exchange, Marcus won't drag you through a three-year custody battle to take Leo away from you as an unfit, unstable mother!"
Silence hung over the glittering crystal chandelier of the dining room.
They really thought that would work.
They thought that if they threatened to take my two-year-old son away from me, I would crumble right here at the table, pull out my phone, and wire them two million dollars to save Marcus from federal prison.
I looked from Brenda’s smug, venomous smirk, to Greg’s arrogant posture, and finally to Marcus—the man who had kissed our son’s forehead on Christmas morning while lying to his face.
Slowly, I reached into my handbag, pulled out the sealed plastic Ziploc bag containing my seven-day vitamin organizer and the unlabeled amber bottle of Angeliq contraceptive tablets, and tossed it onto the center of the mahogany table.
Marcus’s eyes dropped to the amber bottle. For the first time all night, the blood drained completely out of his face.
"What is that?" Brenda frowned, leaning over to squint at the pills.
"Ask your brother, Brenda," I said softly. "When I packed up our master bathroom on Sunday, I found that bottle hidden behind the false divider in Marcus’s drawer—right next to my real prenatal vitamins. For the last eight months, while Marcus told you and your mother at Sunday dinners how sad it was that I couldn't seem to get pregnant with a second baby... he was secretly swapping my daily folic acid pills with high-dose prescription birth control pills bearing Vanessa Cole’s pharmacy lot number."
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Brenda’s jaw dropped. Even Greg took half a step back from Marcus, staring at his brother-in-law in revulsion.
"And as for Vanessa Cole?" Diane Sterling spoke up smoothly, opening her leather briefcase and laying a single stamped affidavit from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on top of Greg’s folders. "When Marcus ran out of the Edgewood Resort in Lake Tahoe yesterday morning and left Vanessa holding an unpaid eighteen-thousand-dollar hotel bill and a felony SEC indictment... Vanessa didn't hire a defense lawyer to fight it. At two o’clock this afternoon, Vanessa walked into the federal building in Reno with her counsel and signed a full cooperation plea deal."
