Chapter 4 - The Child’s Drawing
Charles could not pull his gaze away from the child.
Stormy gray eyes. The slight, arrogant tilt of the chin. The dark, unruly hair. It was like looking into a mirror reflecting thirty years into the past.
“Who is that boy?” Charles demanded, his voice dangerously low.
Emily held Toby tighter against her chest. The six-year-old squirmed, picking up on the sudden, terrifying tension in the room.
“He’s my son,” Emily said firmly.
“Don't lie to me,” Charles warned, taking a slow step forward. The gold pocket watch felt like a burning coal in his grip. “You told me your brother disappeared nineteen years ago. This boy is six. If you’re trying to run a long con on my family to claim a piece of—”
“He is my adopted son,” Emily snapped, stepping back, shielding Toby’s face. “I took him in when he was a baby. He has nothing to do with this!”
“He has the Vance eyes,” Teresa spoke up from the sofa.
Both Charles and Emily looked at the old woman. Teresa was leaning forward, staring at the boy with a profound, aching sadness.
“I saw it the day you brought him here, Emily,” Teresa whispered. “I may lose my keys. I may forget what year it is. But a mother never forgets the eyes of her own blood.”
“He is not a Vance,” Emily insisted, but her voice trembled. Panic was starting to bleed through her calm facade.
“Toby,” Charles said, kneeling down slowly to eye level with the child. “Can you look at me?”
The little boy turned his head slightly. “You’re the loud man.”
Despite the heavy atmosphere, a tiny, unexpected huff of amusement escaped Charles’s chest. “I am. I'm sorry for yelling. Do you like drawing, Toby?”
The boy nodded slowly.
“I saw a picture on your mother’s bag in the hallway,” Charles lied smoothly, using an old interrogation tactic. “Did you draw a black car pushing another car?”
Emily’s breath hitched.
Toby shook his head. “No. I draw dinosaurs. The car picture is in Mommy’s locked box.”
Emily closed her eyes in defeat.
Charles stood up slowly. He didn't yell. The cold, calculating Mafia boss had returned, suppressing the shocked brother and son.
“A locked box,” Charles mused. He looked at Emily. “You didn't just find a bracelet and a watch in your mother’s attic, did you? You found something else. Something you couldn't explain. So you forged a resume, bypassed my security checks—which I will be having words with my team about—and infiltrated my home.”
Emily gently set Toby down. “Toby, go to Mrs. Teresa for a minute.”
The boy waddled over to the couch. Teresa immediately pulled a clean, untouched slice of pizza from the box and handed it to him.
Emily turned to Charles. “I didn't find a drawing by a child. I found a police sketch. Folded inside a hidden compartment of the duffel bag.”
She reached into her pocket again and pulled out a folded, heavily creased piece of paper. She held it out to Charles.
Charles took it. He unfolded it.
It was a graphite sketch, the kind done by a police artist. But it wasn't a face. It was a highly detailed drawing of a custom hood ornament. A silver serpent wrapping around a dagger.
Charles felt the blood drain from his face.
“David drew this,” Emily said softly. “He wrote on the back that the black car didn't just bump the girl's car off the road. It rammed her. Purposely. And the man driving had this ornament on his grille.”
“Marcus,” Charles whispered.
Marcus’s vintage Cadillac. He had restored it himself. The hood ornament was custom-made in Italy.
“If Marcus killed Penny, why would she leave his initials on the watch?” Charles asked, his brilliant mind racing to put the pieces together. “It makes no sense. If she was running from him, she wouldn't have his watch.”
“She didn't have his watch,” Teresa said quietly.
Charles looked at his mother.
Teresa was wiping tomato sauce from Toby’s chin with a napkin. She didn't look up.
“The watch belonged to your father, Charlie,” Teresa said. “But he gave it to Marcus the night before Penny died. It was a gift. For a job well done.”
Charles felt a cold sweat break out on his neck. “What job?”
Teresa finally looked up. Her eyes were completely clear, but they were filled with absolute terror.
“Finding the money Penny stole,” Teresa whispered.
Charles shook his head. “Penny didn't steal anything. She was a music student.”
“She found the offshore accounts, Charles. The ones your father was hiding from the Commission. She threatened to expose him if he didn't let her leave the family.”
Teresa stood up, her joints popping in the quiet room. She walked over to an old mahogany bookshelf. She reached behind a stack of dusty encyclopedias and pulled out a small, rusted safety deposit box key.
She held it out to Charles.
“I hid it from Marcus, Charlie,” Teresa said, her voice breaking. “I had to act crazy. For nineteen years, I had to let him think I didn't know.”
Before Charles could take the key, the heavy mahogany door of the bedroom swung open.
May you like
Standing in the doorway was a man with silver hair, an impeccably tailored suit, and a warm, grandfatherly smile.
“Teresa, my dear,” Marcus said smoothly, his eyes flicking to Charles, then to Emily, and finally resting on the rusted key. “It’s time for your evening medication.”
