Chapter 6 - THE RESTRAINING ORDER
“Mark!” I gasped, dropping to the marble floor beside the bleeding man.
Byron didn’t hesitate. He pulled Mark fully into the foyer and slammed the heavy oak door shut, throwing all three deadbolts. He kept the brass poker raised, peering out the sidelight windows into the dark, snowy driveway.
“Did anyone follow you?” Byron demanded, his voice hard and uncompromising.
Mark coughed, a wet, rattling sound, and shook his head weakly. “No. They left me for dead in the alley behind the pawn shop.”
I carefully pried my mother’s diamond necklace from Mark’s trembling, bloody fingers. The delicate platinum clasp was broken, but the stones were intact. My heart pounded a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
“You tried to sell my mother’s necklace,” I said, looking down at him with a mixture of pity and absolute disgust.
“I didn't try to sell it,” Mark wheezed, rolling onto his back, wincing in agony. “I tried to buy it back.”
Byron turned away from the window, his eyes narrowing. “What are you talking about?”
“Bellamy took it,” Mark confessed, tears mixing with the blood on his face. “She took it from your cottage weeks ago, Lorna. She pawned it to make the first interest payment to Vance. Tonight, when she told me the plan was ruined and she was leaving for Paris alone... she told me where the pawn ticket was.”
He coughed again, clutching his ribs.
“She told me if I wanted to survive Vance, I needed to steal the necklace back from the broker and give it to Vance as collateral. But the broker’s men caught me breaking in.”
Reversal. Mark wasn't the mastermind thief. He was a pathetic, terrified pawn, manipulated by his own sister into doing her dirty work while she planned to escape. Bellamy had used her own family as meat shields.
“Where is Bellamy now?” Byron asked, his voice devoid of any empathy for the man bleeding on his floor.
“She didn't go to the airport,” Mark gasped. “She went to the police.”
Byron froze. “The police? Why?”
“Because she needs a distraction to get out of the state,” Mark explained, his eyes wide with fear. “She filed a false domestic abuse report against you, Byron. She told them you hit her. She filed an emergency restraining order. The police are coming right now to remove you from the house, and while you're in custody, she's going to come back for the kids and the rest of the money.”
My blood ran completely cold.
Bellamy was weaponizing the law against my son to facilitate a kidnapping.
“Byron, you have to leave,” I panicked, grabbing his arm. “If they arrest you, she’ll take Lily and Leo. She’ll disappear with them, and you’ll never see them again.”
“I am not leaving my children,” Byron stated fiercely, his jaw set in stone. “Let the police come. I’ll fight the order.”
“You can't fight a mandatory arrest on a Friday holiday weekend!” I cried. “You’ll sit in a holding cell until Monday morning. That gives Bellamy three days to vanish. Please, Byron. I will stay here. I am the legal owner of this house now. The police can't force me to leave. I will protect the children.”
Byron looked at me, the agony of the choice tearing him apart. He looked up the stairs toward where his children were sleeping, then down at the bloody mess of his brother-in-law on the floor.
He knew I was right.
“Take my car,” I said, tossing him the keys to my old sedan. “Go to my cottage. The deed is in my name. Stay there until the lawyers can kill the restraining order.”
Byron grabbed me into a tight, desperate hug. “Do not let her in this house, Mom. No matter what happens.”
“She will have to kill me first,” I promised him.
Byron slipped out the back door, disappearing into the snowy night just as the flashing red and blue lights of two police cruisers turned onto our long driveway.
I turned to Mark. “Get up. Go into the downstairs half-bath and clean the blood off your face. If the police see you like this, they’ll think Byron did it.”
Mark scrambled up, terrified of returning to jail, and locked himself in the bathroom.
I smoothed my clothes, took a deep breath, and opened the front door just as two uniformed officers stepped onto the porch.
“Lorna Shaw?” the older officer asked, his hand resting on his utility belt.
“Yes, Officer,” I replied calmly.
“We have an emergency ex parte protective order against Byron Shaw, filed by his wife, Bellamy Shaw. We need him to vacate the premises immediately.”
“My son is not here,” I said, holding my ground in the doorway. “And Bellamy Shaw does not live here anymore.”
The officer frowned, pulling a document from his clipboard. “Ma’am, this is her legal residence.”
“No, it isn't,” I said. I reached over to the console table and picked up the manila folder Byron had left there hours ago. I handed it to the officer. “This property was legally transferred to me two weeks ago. I am the sole owner. Bellamy Shaw is a trespasser, and she is not permitted on my property.”
The officer reviewed the deed, looking surprised.
Before he could respond, a sleek black SUV pulled up behind the police cruisers.
The door opened, and Bellamy stepped out. She looked entirely different than she had hours ago. Her hair was messy, her makeup was smudged perfectly to mimic tears, and she held a tissue to her face. She was playing the role of the terrified victim flawlessly.
“Officers,” Bellamy cried, rushing up the steps. “Is he gone? Are my babies safe?”
She tried to push past me into the house.
I didn't move an inch. I planted my feet squarely in the center of the doorway, physically blocking her path.
“Get out of my way, Lorna,” Bellamy hissed under her breath, a venomous glare breaking through her fake tears.
“Officers,” I said loudly, keeping my eyes locked on Bellamy. “As the legal owner of this property, I want this woman removed for trespassing. She has no legal right to enter my home, and she poses a flight risk to my grandchildren.”
“She’s lying!” Bellamy shrieked, turning to the police. “I am their mother! I have a right to my children!”
The older officer looked torn. “Ma'am, without a formal custody order in place, we can't stop a mother from taking her children, even if you own the house.”
My heart plummeted. Bellamy smiled a dark, triumphant smile. She reached out to push me aside.
“She’s not taking the children.”
A new voice cut through the freezing night air.
Everyone turned.
Stepping out of the passenger side of Bellamy’s black SUV was an older woman wrapped in a heavy fur coat.
It was Diane. Bellamy’s mother.
Bellamy’s jaw dropped. “Mom? What are you doing? Tell them I need my kids!”
Diane walked slowly up the snowy steps. She didn't look at her daughter. She looked directly at the police officers.
“My daughter is lying, Officer,” Diane said, her voice shaking with shame but ringing with absolute truth. “Byron Shaw did not touch her. I was at the Christmas dinner. We all were. She fabricated the abuse to steal the children and flee the country because she was caught stealing money from her husband.”
Reversal. Bellamy’s own mother, the woman who had enabled her snobbery for years, was finally drawing the line. The reality of her daughter’s criminal actions had finally broken Diane’s loyalty.
The police officers exchanged a heavy look. Filing a false police report to obtain an emergency protective order was a felony.
“Mrs. Shaw,” the officer said, turning to Bellamy, pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “We need you to come down to the station to answer some questions.”
Bellamy panicked. She shoved the officer hard in the chest, turned, and sprinted down the snowy driveway toward the street, abandoning the SUV and her mother.
The officers yelled and gave chase, their heavy boots crunching in the snow.
I stood on the porch, my knees trembling with relief, as Diane walked up to me.
She didn't apologize. She just handed me a small, tarnished silver object she had found on the passenger seat of Bellamy’s SUV.
It was a silver locket.
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I opened it. Inside wasn't a picture of Bellamy and Byron. It was a picture of Bellamy and a man I didn't recognize—a hard-looking man with a scar on his chin.
“That’s Arthur Vance,” Diane whispered, tears in her eyes. “The loan shark. She wasn't running away from him, Lorna. She was running away with him.”
