Chapter 2 - The St. Jude Investigation
By 9:00 a.m., we were sitting in a sterile, fluorescent-lit conference room at St. Jude Senior Living Center. The smell of floor polish and cafeteria coffee was still thick in the air, but the atmosphere had shifted entirely from the quiet warmth of our Sunday visit.
The room was crowded. Aside from Officer Miller and Officer Davis, the facility director, Dr. Evelyn Vance (no relation, or so she claimed initially), sat at the head of the mahogany table, wringing her hands. Across from us sat a slick attorney in a charcoal-grey suit whose cufflinks gleamed like twin daggers under the lights. His nameplate read Marcus Thorne, Counsel for the Vance Estate.
"This is an absolute farce," Thorne barked, slamming a leather-bound folder onto the table. "A minor sneaks into a private residential care facility under the guise of volunteer work, bypasses standard dietary protocols, and extracts a legally binding codicil from a vulnerable, incapacitated senior citizen?"
"She didn't sneak in!" I snapped, slamming my hand onto the table, standing up so fast my chair scraped loudly against the floor. "She has volunteered here every Thursday and Friday for six months! Her name is on the ledger!"
"Quiet, mother," Thorne sneered, not even looking at me. He turned his cold gaze onto Lila, who was huddled beside me, clutching her rabbit backpack like a shield. "Let's talk to the baker. Tell me, little girl, did someone put you up to this? Did your mother tell you to target Arthur Vance? Did she mention his holdings in real estate and manufacturing?"
Lila’s lower lip quivered. She looked up at me, tears spilling over her eyelashes. "I don't know who Arthur Vance is," she whispered, her voice trembling. "He was just an old man crying. He said he hadn't tasted anything real in years. I just wanted him to have a pie."
"An innocent act," a new voice chimed from the doorway.
We all turned. A tall, silver-haired man in a tweed jacket stood in the entrance. He looked older than Thorne, with kind eyes and a posture that commanded the room without raising a voice. It was Dr. Harold Hayes, the chief medical officer of St. Jude.
"Mr. Thorne," Dr. Hayes said calmly, walking over to the table. "I was present when Mr. Vance ate that pie. I examined him immediately afterward. He was not coerced. For the first time in over a year, his neurological panel showed a surge of cognitive clarity. Do you know why? Because connection heals what medicine cannot."
Thorne scowled. "Medical anomalies do not override probate law, Doctor. Mr. Vance’s primary beneficiaries—his estranged nephew and corporate board—will contest this document until hell freezes over. That codicil leaves seventy percent of his personal estate—valued at roughly forty-two million dollars—to a fourteen-year-old girl he met for ninety seconds over a pastry."
The room went dead silent.
Forty-two million dollars.
I stared at Lila, then back at the attorney. My mind couldn't even process the number. All I could think of was the cracked driveway, the old refrigerator humming in our kitchen, and the double shifts I worked just to keep the lights on.
"We don't want his money," I said coldly, my voice steadying as a fierce, protective rage washed over me. "Take your papers, take your lawyers, and leave my daughter alone."
Before Thorne could respond, the heavy oak doors of the conference room swung open wide, and a woman stepped inside who made my heart stop entirely.
It was my mother.
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Her hair was impeccably styled, her cashmere coat unblemished by the real world, and her expression frozen in the exact same look of absolute disgust she had worn fourteen years ago when I told her I was pregnant.
"Well, well, Rowan," my mother purred, her eyes sweeping over our worn clothes and flour-dusted shoes. "It seems even when you're living in squalor, you manage to find a way to chase a fortune. Except this time, the law is going to strip you bare."
