Chapter 6 - Clean Gauze and Cold Truths
The urgent care clinic on North Main smelled of antiseptic, industrial floor wax, and the dry, overheated air of a municipal building in late autumn.
The doctor who attended to me was a young woman with kind, exhausted eyes and steady hands named Dr. Chen. She cleaned the wound with saline that stung like liquid fire, picking tiny, microscopic grains of ceramic glaze from the jagged edges of my skin before administering four local injections of lidocaine.
"Fourteen stitches, Mrs. Vance," Dr. Chen said, her brow furrowed as she worked the needle through my skin with meticulous, rhythmic pulls. "A quarter-inch lower and this would have damaged the supraorbital nerve. Another half-inch to the left and you’d be looking at an orbital fracture. Whoever threw that plate threw it with intent to do severe damage."
David Vance sat in the vinyl armchair in the corner of the examination room, his notepad resting on his knee, his pen moving steadily across the yellow legal paper. He didn't speak while the doctor worked; he simply observed, recording times, names, and the doctor's clinical observations.
When Dr. Chen finished, taping a thick, sterile gauze pad over my left temple, she handed me a printed sheet of aftercare instructions and a plastic bottle of antibiotics.
"The police officer who escorted you in—Sgt. Miller—he took extensive photographs before we dressed the wound," Dr. Chen said gently, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Those photos are now part of the county forensic record. You rest tonight, Mrs. Vance. And do not take off that bandage until Monday."
It was nearly eleven o'clock when David drove me to his office downtown. The streets were deserted, the pavement gleaming like black patent leather under the sodium streetlights.
Inside the quiet warmth of his library, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling rows of leather-bound legal statutes, David poured me a cup of hot chamomile tea and set a manila folder on the table between us.
"Drink that, Beatrice," David said, his voice quiet. "You’ve had a shock to your system that would have put most men half your age into cardiac arrest."
"I’m tougher than they thought I was, David," I whispered, the hot mug warming my trembling fingers. "Harold always said I was made of ironwood."
"You shouldn't have had to be," he replied gravely. He opened the folder. "I did some digging through public records and my financial contacts over the last forty-eight hours, Beatrice. I wanted to understand why Marcus was pushing so aggressively for Briarwood Lane."
He slid three financial disclosure printouts across the mahogany desk.
"Marcus isn't just having a rough quarter," David said, pointing to a series of red-inked entries. "His consulting firm is under formal investigation by the state regulatory board for commingling client funds. He has two outstanding civil judgments against him totaling nearly one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. His primary residence in Shady Pines isn't being 'squeezed by rent'—it went into pre-foreclosure thirty days ago."
I closed my eyes. The throbbing in my head matched the slow, heavy beating of my heart. "They weren't planning on living in Briarwood."
"No," David said. "They were planning on having you transfer the deed to Marissa and Diane, immediately taking out a hard-money equity loan against the property for two hundred thousand dollars to pay off Marcus’s creditors, and then letting the bank foreclose on the house when they defaulted. They were going to strip Harold's life's work to the studs to keep Marcus out of federal prison."
The sheer depravity of it made the air catch in my throat.
They hadn't just wanted a home; they had wanted a sacrificial lamb. And Tyler—my Tyler, the boy who used to fall asleep with his ear pressed to my collarbone listening to the beat of my heart—had been their willing instrument. Whether he knew the full extent of Marcus's fraud or was simply blinded by his pathetic desire to please his wife didn't even matter anymore. He had stood by while they laid the wood around the stake.
"What happens to Marissa now?" I asked.
"She’s currently sitting in the county detention center," David said without a flicker of emotion. "Because of your age, the charge isn't simple assault. It is Aggravated Battery on a Vulnerable Adult—a Class C felony in this state, carrying a mandatory minimum sentence if convicted. Because she used a ceramic plate, it is also classified as Assault with a Deadly Weapon."
"Will she get bail?"
"Marcus will try to post it tomorrow morning," David said, "but with his credit frozen, he’ll have to find a bondsman willing to take a high-risk collateral note. And tomorrow morning, at eight-thirty sharp, I will be standing in front of the duty magistrate filing an emergency protective order. That order will forbid Marissa, Diane, and Marcus from coming within five hundred yards of your person, your home on Elm Street, or the Briarwood property. Any contact—direct, indirect, digital, or through third parties—will result in immediate revocation of bail."
I looked down at the white gauze covering my hand. "And Tyler?"
David paused, his pen poised above his pad. His eyes were full of a deep, sorrowful understanding. "Tyler wasn't arrested tonight, Beatrice. He didn't throw the plate. Legally, cowardice is not a crime."
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"No," I whispered, the tears finally coming, hot and bitter against the sterile gauze on my cheek. "It isn't a crime. But it’s a sentence all the same."
***
