Chapter 5
Clara lifted her head from Jocelyn’s shoulder, her small fingers reaching up to touch the fabric of Jocelyn’s blouse. “Mommy... can we go home now? I don't like Aunt Katherine's house.”
“We’re leaving in a minute, sweetheart,” Jocelyn murmured, kissing the girl’s forehead.
Katherine stepped forward, her voice rising into an unhinged scream. “You calculating, manipulative bitch! You’ve been planning this for years! You smiled at Thanksgiving! You sent Christmas cards! You sat there pretending to be our quiet, dutiful little sister while you were buying up our debt like a vulture!”
“You created the carcass, Katherine,” Jocelyn shot back. “I just bought the meat.”
“Richard, do something!” Eleanor wailed, shaking her husband’s arm. “Tell her she can't do this! Call the governor! Call Judge Hastings! He plays golf with you every Saturday!”
“Judge Hastings signed the seizure warrant for Katherine’s corporate assets at eleven o'clock this morning, Mother,” Jocelyn said flatly. “He was more than happy to do it once my forensic team showed him the check stubs Katherine wrote to his political opponent’s super-PAC last month.”
Katherine’s jaw dropped. “You... you found that?”
“I found everything,” Jocelyn said. “Every bribe, every doctored trial result, every fake expense report. Did you really think you were a business genius, Katherine? You’re a glorified thief who spent ten years spending Daddy’s money, and when Daddy ran out of cash, you started stealing from your investors.”
“I gave everything to that company!” Katherine screamed, tears finally breaking through her makeup, streaking black mascara down her rosy cheeks. “I worked eighty-hour weeks! I skipped having a family! I gave up my life while you got to play mommy with your little bastard!”
The air in the foyer was sucked out instantly.
Jocelyn didn't yell. She didn't raise her hand. She simply took two slow, measured steps toward Katherine. The sheer, concentrated violence radiating from Jocelyn made Katherine take an involuntary step back until her heels hit the base of the staircase.
“Her name is Clara,” Jocelyn said, each syllable dropping like a lead weight. “Her father was an honorable man who gave his life serving this country while you were snorting lines in the VIP lounge in Miami. If you ever use that word near my daughter again, Katherine, I won't just take your company. I will make sure the Department of Justice puts you in a federal penitentiary for the next twenty years.”
Katherine pressed herself against the banister, her arrogance completely evaporating into raw, pathetic fear. “Jocelyn... please. You don’t have to do this.”
“Mommy?” Clara’s tiny voice broke the silence.
Jocelyn glanced down at her daughter. “Yes, baby?”
Clara pointed a trembling finger toward Katherine. “In the bathroom before dinner... Aunt Katherine pinched my arm. She told me that if I ate any of the bread, she would make sure Daddy’s ghost came and took my toys away.”
Jocelyn’s eyes snapped back to Katherine.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Even Eleanor stopped weeping, looking at Katherine with a dawning, horrified realization.
“You pinched her?” Eleanor whispered, her voice cracking. “Katherine... did you threaten that child?”
“She... she was running her dirty hands across the guest towels!” Katherine stammered, raising her hands defensively. “I just told her to behave! It was a joke!”
Jocelyn reached down with her free hand and rolled up the soft lace sleeve of Clara’s Easter dress.
On the tender white skin of the girl’s upper arm, two distinct, deep purple crescent bruises were clearly visible—the exact shape of Katherine’s long, square acrylic nails.
Richard looked at the bruises. A muscle in his jaw twitched violently. For the first time all afternoon, the old man’s eyes shifted away from his eldest daughter.
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“Jocelyn,” Richard croaked, his voice cracking with age. “I... I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t want to know, Richard,” Jocelyn said, pulling the sleeve back down to cover the bruise. “Because in this house, cruelty was always rewarded as long as it was dressed in silk.”
