Chapter 3 - THE BLACKMAIL BEGINS
Josephine walked over to the couch and dropped her backpack on the cushion between Vance and Rebecca. She unzipped it and pulled out a thick manila envelope, the kind with the red string closure. She held it out—but not toward Vance. Toward her mother. “You told me he could make Dad’s permit problem go away,” Josephine said, her voice steady now, steely in a way I’d never heard from her before. “That if I got him these files, his friend at the county would shred the evidence before the audit next month. But I did some checking, Mom. I called the county planning department. Pretended I was a student doing a report on construction regulations. And do you know what they told me?”
Rebecca’s face had gone completely white. She didn’t take the envelope.
“They told me Harris Construction passed their last audit with flying colors,” Josephine continued. “No red flags. No forged permits. No investigation pending. Nothing. You lied to me. Both of you.”
She turned her gaze to Vance now, and the hatred in her eyes was so raw, so visceral, that even through the phone screen, I flinched.
“You used my dad against me,” she said. “You told me he’d go to prison. That we’d lose the house. That I’d have to move away and never see my friends again. And I believed you. For eight months, I did everything you asked. I skipped parties. I stopped talking to my best friend because you said she was a bad influence. I wore the dresses you liked. I let you—”
Her voice broke. She stopped, swallowed hard, and started again.
“I let you do whatever you wanted. Because I thought I was protecting my family. But it was all a lie. There was never anything wrong with Dad’s company. You just wanted an excuse to get close to me. To get me alone.”
Vance’s demeanor shifted in an instant. The charming dentist was gone. In his place was something colder, harder, older. He sat back on the couch and steepled his fingers, his eyes never leaving Josephine’s face.
“You’re smarter than I gave you credit for, kid,” he said. There was no warmth in his voice now. None of that fake paternal kindness. “But you’re also still just a stupid little girl who doesn’t know how the real world works. So let me explain it to you plainly.”
He leaned forward, and even through the camera, I could feel the menace rolling off him.
“Your father’s construction company is fine. For now. But you know what isn’t fine? The seven thousand dollars your mother has embezzled from my clinic over the last year. Little by little. Siphoning it from the petty cash, writing checks to fake vendors, padding her expense reports. Seven thousand dollars, Rebecca. That’s grand theft in this state. That’s three to five years in Chowchilla Women’s Prison. Minimum.”
Rebecca made a small, terrified sound in the back of her throat.
Vance smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh, did you think I didn’t know? I let you do it, baby. Every last dollar. Because I knew one day I’d need leverage. And today is that day. So here’s how this is going to go. Josephine is going to give me that envelope. And then she’s going to apologize for her little outburst. And tomorrow after school, she’s going to come to my office like we planned. And if either of you so much as breathes a word of this to Elias? Or to the police? I go to the DA Monday morning with every bank record, every canceled check, every email where you admitted to taking the money, Rebecca. Your mom goes away for a long time. And Josephine? You get to tell your dad why his wife is in prison. And why it’s all your fault for not keeping your mouth shut.”
The room was silent for a long moment. I watched through the camera, my hands shaking so bad I almost dropped my phone. This was worse than anything I’d imagined. Vance hadn’t just been sleeping with my wife and grooming my daughter—he’d been setting them up. Manipulating them both, pulling their strings like puppets, making sure he had blackmail material on each of them to keep them in line.
Rebecca was crying now, silent tears tracking down her face. “Marcus, please... we can work this out. I’ll pay you back. Every penny. I’ll get a second job—”
“Shut up,” Vance said, not even looking at her. He kept his eyes on Josephine. “I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to her. Josephine. The envelope. Now.”
Josephine stood frozen for what felt like an eternity. I willed her through the screen—don’t do it, baby, don’t give him anything, I’m right here, I’ll fix this—but she couldn’t hear me. She looked at her sobbing mother. She looked at Vance, cold and waiting on the couch. And slowly, her hand trembling, she held out the envelope.
Vance took it. He weighed it in his hand, nodded like he was satisfied, and stood up.
“Good girl,” he said. He tucked the envelope into his suit jacket. “Tomorrow at four, Josephine. My private exam room. And don’t even think about being late. Or your mother finds out what orange is the new black really means.”
He walked out without another word. The front door clicked shut behind him.
Rebecca collapsed onto the couch, her whole body shaking with sobs. She reached for Josephine, tried to pull her into a hug, but Josephine stepped back like her mother’s touch burned.
“Don’t,” Josephine said. Her voice was dead. “Don’t you dare touch me. You let him do this. You knew what he was. You helped him. And for what? For a few thousand dollars? For attention from a man who doesn’t even care if you live or die?”
“I was scared,” Rebecca whispered. “Elias has been working so hard, and the bills were piling up, and Marcus said he’d help me... I didn’t know he’d—”
“You didn’t know?” Josephine laughed, a harsh, bitter sound that made my chest ache. “You walked in on him in my bedroom three months ago, Mom. You saw him sitting on my bed, touching my hair. And you turned around and walked right back out. You knew. You’ve always known. And you chose him. You chose him over your own daughter.”
She turned and ran up the stairs. The camera in the hallway caught her slamming her bedroom door so hard the walls shook.
Rebecca sat alone on the couch for a long time, crying into her hands. Then she wiped her face, pulled out her phone, and dialed a number. I leaned in closer to the screen.
“Marcus?” she said when he answered. Her voice was shaky but determined. “We need to talk. You went too far today. Josephine’s unraveling. If she tells Elias—”
Whatever Vance said on the other end made her go pale. She nodded once, twice, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. I understand. But you have to promise me... you won’t hurt her. Not really. She’s still just a kid.”
She listened for another minute, then hung up. She sat there for a long time, staring at nothing. Then she stood up, walked into the kitchen, and pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge. She poured herself a glass. Then another. And another.
I closed the feed. I couldn’t watch anymore.
I sat in that diner booth until the sun went down, staring out the window at the traffic passing on Route 41. I thought about all the times I’d come home tired from work, too tired to notice that my daughter was dying right in front of me. Too tired to notice that my wife had checked out of our marriage a year ago. Too tired to see that a monster had moved into our house, into our lives, and was slowly destroying everything I loved.
Mrs. Gable was right. I couldn’t go home yet. I couldn’t blow this up now—not when Vance had Rebecca’s embezzlement hanging over our heads, not when he was so clearly planning something even worse for Josephine tomorrow at four.
I called Mrs. Gable. She answered on the first ring.
“I saw,” she said before I could speak. “All of it. Elias, we need to move fast. That man is going to hurt that girl tomorrow if we don’t stop him. But we can’t just call the police—he’s got friends on the force, I know he does. The sheriff was his fraternity brother in college. They play golf together every Sunday. If we go to them with this, Vance will know before we even finish giving our statement.”
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“Then what do we do?” I said. My voice was barely a growl. “I’m not letting him touch her again, Mrs. Gable. Not tomorrow. Not ever. I’ll kill him with my bare hands first.”
“I know you will,” she said calmly. “And that’s exactly what he’s counting on. But we’re going to do something better. We’re going to destroy him. Properly. Publicly. In a way that even his sheriff buddy can’t fix. Meet me at my house in an hour. And bring your checkbook. We need to hire someone. Someone who doesn’t play by the rules.”
