Chapter 5 - THE HEAVY WINTER COAT
“NO!” Vanessa screamed, tracking the silver rosary as it sailed through the air.
Her greed overpowered her self-preservation. She lunged away from the door, diving toward the stone hearth to catch the key before it vanished into the flames.
It was exactly the distraction Vincent needed.
In a blur of motion, Vincent crossed the room. He grabbed a heavy wooden dining chair and hurled it directly at Vanessa. The chair crashed into her legs, sweeping her feet out from under her.
The silver derringer fired into the ceiling, raining plaster down on the dining table.
Vanessa hit the floor hard, dropping the gun. Before she could scramble for it, Vincent was on top of her. He pinned her to the Persian rug, his knee pressed suffocatingly into her chest.
“Restrain her,” Vincent barked to his security detail.
Two massive men in dark suits rushed forward, hauling the screaming, thrashing woman off the floor and zip-tying her wrists behind her back.
I rushed over to the fireplace, ignoring the heat, and snatched the silver rosary from the stone hearth just inches from the flames. I held the open crucifix in my trembling hands, staring at the small brass key resting inside.
“Are you alright, Anna?” Vincent asked, his chest heaving as he stood up and adjusted his jacket.
“I’m fine,” I breathed, closing the crucifix tightly. I looked over at Florence, who was being tended to by one of the investors. She gave me a brave, trembling nod.
Vincent turned to the head of his security detail.
“Marco,” Vincent ordered. “Take ten men. Go to the First City Bank downtown. Wake the manager up if you have to. Take this key, open safety deposit box 412, and bring whatever is inside back to this room. Do not open it.”
I handed the brass key to the towering security guard. He nodded sharply and sprinted out the door.
For forty-five agonizing minutes, the dining room was completely silent. The wealthy investors sat on the floor, too terrified to speak. Uncle Richard sat slumped in the corner, weeping quietly, a guard standing over him. Vanessa knelt in the center of the room, her makeup smeared, glaring at me with unfiltered hatred.
I stood beside Vincent, my hand resting gently on the back of Florence’s chair.
Finally, the heavy oak doors swung open.
Marco walked back in. He was carrying a massive, rusted iron lockbox. He placed it heavily on the dining table, right over the smeared remnants of the dinner Vanessa had tried to ruin.
“It was the only thing in the vault, Boss,” Marco said.
Vincent looked at the box. He didn't hesitate. He grabbed a heavy silver serving knife from the table and jammed it under the rusted latch. With a violent twist, the lock snapped.
He threw the lid open.
We all leaned forward.
Inside the box wasn't sixty million dollars in bearer bonds. It wasn't gold bars.
It was a heavy, dark blue winter coat.
“What is that?” one of the investors whispered.
Vincent reached into the box and pulled the coat out. It was a thick, expensive wool overcoat. The kind a woman would wear in the dead of winter.
As Vincent held it up to the light of the chandelier, my stomach violently dropped.
The entire right side of the heavy wool coat was completely soaked and stained with a massive, dried, dark brown substance.
Blood.
“That’s Eleanor’s coat,” Florence gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. “She wore that the night of the Christmas gala three years ago.”
“The night she had her first minor heart attack,” Vincent murmured, staring at the dried blood. He looked up at Vanessa. “The doctors told me she collapsed from stress. They said she hit her head on the coffee table when she fell.”
“She didn't fall,” I said softly, piecing the horrible truth together. I looked at the massive bloodstain. “Someone attacked her. Someone tried to kill her three years ago, and she survived. She hid the coat because she knew the police were on your payroll, Vanessa. She knew no one would believe her.”
Vanessa laughed—a high, hysterical, manic sound.
“You think a bloody coat proves anything?” Vanessa sneered, spitting hair out of her face. “It’s circumstantial garbage! You can't prove I touched her! You can't prove I killed your pathetic mother either!”
She was right. The key, the note, the coat—it was enough to ruin her in Vincent’s eyes, but maybe not enough to hold up in a corrupt court system paid off by the syndicate she worked for.
I walked over to the table. I reached into the rusted lockbox to see if my mother had hidden anything else beneath the heavy coat.
My fingers brushed against a piece of paper resting at the very bottom.
I pulled it out.
It was a piece of construction paper, folded neatly in half.
I opened it.
It was a child’s drawing. Done in bright, messy crayons.
“Vincent,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Look at this.”
Vincent walked over. He stared at the crayon drawing.
It depicted a dark room with a Christmas tree in the corner. In the center of the room, a stick figure with a red dress was holding a heavy fire poker, swinging it violently at a woman in a blue coat.
But it wasn't the crude violence of the drawing that made the blood freeze in my veins.
It was the signature scrawled in the bottom right corner in uneven, child-like letters.
By Leo.
Leo was Vincent’s seven-year-old son.
“My son drew this,” Vincent breathed, horror washing over his face.
“Answer one,” I said, looking from the drawing to Vanessa. “Eleanor wasn't attacked by a random burglar three years ago. Vanessa tried to bludgeon her to death in this very house.”
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I looked down at the child’s drawing, realizing the terrifying implication of what my mother had hidden.
“Open two,” I whispered, looking up at Vincent. “Where was Leo the night his grandmother was attacked?”
