Chapter 3 - The Threatening Visit
By midday, Jovi was settled into a private room on the orthopedic surgical floor.
Her right arm was immobilized in a thick, rigid fiberglass splint that extended from her fingertips to just below her elbow. Her hand was elevated on an angled foam wedge, wrapped in crisp white bandages. The skin around her nails was still pale, but the capillary refill was returning—a tiny, agonizing flicker of hope.
“Mom?” she murmured, waking from a fitful sleep.
I moved to her side, pouring water from the bedside pitcher into a plastic cup with a flexible straw. “I’m here, sweetie.”
She took two sips, then rested her head against the raised mattress. “Did Dad really film me?”
The question had been waiting in her eyes since the moment I walked into Orson’s house.
“Yes, Jovi. He did.”
She closed her eyes. A tear tracked through the dried blood that remained near her hairline. “I asked him to help me, Mom. When the door slammed, I fell down. I couldn't breathe. Sutton was yelling that I was crazy. I looked up at Dad... I reached out to him. And he just took out his phone. He smiled. He said, *‘Keep talking, Jovi. The judge is going to love this.’* Why does he hate me so much?”
“He doesn't hate you, baby,” I said, brushing her hair away from her forehead. “To hate someone, you have to see them as a human being. Your father doesn't see people. He sees mirrors. When you don't reflect what he wants to see about himself, he wants to break the glass.”
A sharp knock came at the door.
I expected Detective Vance. Instead, the door swung open, and Doria Cross stepped into the room.
My former mother-in-law was sixty-nine years old, maintained with surgical precision: pulled skin, frosted blonde bob, a cream-colored St. John knit suit, and three strands of South Sea pearls. Behind her stood two men in identical charcoal suits carrying leather briefcases.
“Maren,” Doria said, closing the door behind her companions. “That’s enough drama. Send the nurses out. We’re going to resolve this like civilized people.”
I stood up slowly. I didn't move away from Jovi’s bed. I stepped into the gap between the bed and Doria.
“Get out of this room,” I said.
“Don't use that tone with me,” Doria replied, smoothing her lapels. “This is Arthur Sterling and Richard Hayes from Sterling, Hayes & Vance. They are the family’s senior corporate counsel. We have drawn up papers that provide for Jovi’s recovery, her education, and a trust fund. In exchange, you will execute a full release of all civil claims and instruct the Charlotte police that this was an intra-family domestic accident.”
The taller lawyer, Sterling, cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Ms. Vance. If this goes to a public trial, the discovery process will be deeply invasive. We will be forced to scrutinize Jovi’s mental health records, her academic pressures, and her history of emotional volatility. It would be far more advantageous for everyone—”
“Stop talking,” I said.
Sterling stopped. He was used to dealing with executives who calculated risk in terms of billable hours and stock prices. He wasn't used to dealing with a mother whose daughter’s hand had just been put back together with screws.
“Number one,” I said, looking directly at Sterling. “You are currently on hospital property attempting to conduct a settlement conference with a post-operative patient under the influence of narcotic analgesics without her independent counsel present. That is a direct violation of Rule 4.2 of the North Carolina Rules of Professional Conduct. I will file a grievance with the State Bar before five o'clock.”
Sterling’s eyes flicked sideways toward his partner.
“Number two,” I turned my gaze back to Doria. “You walked past a sign on the door that clearly stated *No Visitors Except Immediate Family*. You aren't family, Doria. You’re a co-conspirator in an ongoing felony investigation.”
Doria let out an aristocratic sniff of disbelief. “Co-conspirator? I am the matriarch of this family! I brought Jovi soup when she had the flu when she was eight years old!”
“And last night,” I took two steps toward her, forcing her to take a step back into the corridor door, “you handed me a kitchen towel while my daughter was bleeding out on your floor and told me not to be rude. You stood in the doorway with eleven other cowards to prevent an ambulance from arriving because you were worried the neighbors might see red lights on your circular driveway.”
“Sutton did nothing wrong!” Doria hissed, her composure cracking, revealing the bitter, venomous entitlement underneath. “She built an empire! She is a celebrated woman! Your daughter had her nose in things that didn't belong to her! A young girl shouldn't be snooping into commercial transactions!”
“The commercial transaction was in Jovi’s name, Doria,” I said, my voice dropping so low the lawyers had to lean in to hear. “Sutton forged her identity. And when Jovi caught her, Sutton tried to cripple her drawing hand so she couldn't sign a statement.”
“That is a lie!”
“The police have the loan files,” I lied smoothly, watching Doria’s pupils dilate. “They took them from the library desk forty minutes ago under a search warrant signed by Judge Henderson.”
Doria’s breath hitched. She looked at Sterling. “Arthur? Did they have a warrant?”
Sterling didn't answer. He knew when a room was poisoned. He took a step back toward the hallway.
“We should leave, Mrs. Cross,” Sterling whispered. “Now.”
“No!” Doria glared at me, her hands trembling against her crocodile leather handbag. “You think you’re so clever, Maren. You think because you run some little boutique detective agency you can take down a family that built this county? We know the judges. We know the chief of police. We know the publishers of the *Charlotte Observer*. You will be ruined.”
“Doria,” I said, reaching over to press the emergency call button on the wall. A loud chime sounded in the hallway, accompanied by a flashing red light over the door. “You have sixty seconds to clear these corridors before hospital security and the CMPD officers stationed downstairs remove you in handcuffs. And when you get home, tell Declan to check his email. He’s just been served with an emergency ex parte order of protection. If he comes within five hundred yards of Jovi or me, he spends thirty days in jail.”
The door opened, and two uniformed security guards appeared, their eyes hard.
“Is there a problem here, Ms. Vance?” the lead guard asked.
“These individuals are trespassing in a restricted clinical zone,” I said. “Escort them off the premises. If they return, have them arrested.”
Sterling and Hayes didn't wait. They turned and walked rapidly down the corridor, their briefcases swinging. Doria lingered for one hideous, trembling second, her mouth curled into a sneer of pure venom, before the security guards stepped between us and ushered her away.
I closed the door.
The room was silent except for the low hum of the oxygen monitor.
“Mom?” Jovi’s voice was small, cracked with exhaustion.
I went back to the bed and took her left hand in both of mine. “I’m here, baby.”
“They’re never going to stop, are they?”
May you like
“They’re going to stop,” I told her, kissing the back of her uninjured knuckles. “Because by the time I’m done with them, they won't have enough money left to pay someone to open the front door.”
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