Chapter 7 - THE CRAYON DRAWING
I walked out of the vault, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The bank lobby was bright and quiet.
Marcus stood near the tall glass windows, wearing a perfectly pressed suit, as if he hadn't just been evicted from his home the night before.
Standing next to him, clutching his pant leg in sheer terror, was little Leo.
Vivian was sitting on a plush leather sofa nearby, sipping coffee from a paper cup, looking entirely unbothered.
I walked toward them, clutching the manila folder and the ledger against my chest.
“Ah, the conquering heroine,” Vivian sneered, not looking up from her phone. “You look terrible, Nora. Fever still burning?”
I ignored her. I looked at Leo. The boy’s eyes were wide, brimming with tears. He looked at me, a stranger, pleading for help.
“Where is Clara?” I asked Marcus.
“Resting in the trunk of my car,” Marcus smiled faintly. “She fought back. It was unfortunate. Now, hand over the files, Nora. And sign this.”
He pulled a fresh document from his breast pocket and laid it on the glass counter.
It was a full confession to the embezzlement of my firm’s trust accounts.
“Sign it, hand over the evidence, and I let the boy go,” Marcus said.
I looked at the pen he held out. If I signed it, I would go to prison for twenty years. If I didn't, Clara might already be dead, and Leo would disappear forever.
I looked down at the little boy.
Leo reached into the pocket of his small jacket with a trembling hand. He pulled out a folded piece of paper and held it up to me.
“For you,” the boy whispered.
Marcus snatched it before I could. “What is this, Leo?”
Marcus unfolded it. It was a child’s drawing. A crude crayon sketch of a house, a tree, and a dog.
Marcus laughed cruelly and tossed the drawing onto the counter. “He’s an idiot, just like his mother.”
But I saw it.
The drawing was on the back of a printed receipt.
The receipt was from the bus station Clara had tried to escape from. But it wasn't just a receipt. Scrawled in Clara’s frantic handwriting across the bottom were four words:
I called the police.
Before Marcus could realize what I was looking at, the heavy glass doors of the bank shattered the morning quiet.
Four police officers stormed into the lobby.
“Marcus Vance!” the lead detective shouted, his hand on his holster.
Marcus froze. He looked at me, his eyes wide with betrayal. “You called them?”
“No,” I said softly.
The detective walked straight past Marcus. He walked up to me and grabbed my wrist, pulling it firmly behind my back.
“Nora Vance, you are under arrest for the embezzlement of three million dollars from the Vanguard Trust,” the detective said.
May you like
I gasped.
Vivian stood up, offering the detective a sad, maternal smile. “Thank God you’re here, Detective. My daughter-in-law has been out of her mind with fever. She confessed everything to us this morning.”
