Chapter 3 - The Invasion
I did not sleep a single minute that entire night.
The sickening knowledge that Grant had stolen from our daughter's trust fund kept me pacing the floor.
The heavy brass doorbell rang sharply at 7:12 the next morning.
I walked down the grand staircase and pulled open the front door.
Grant's mother stood outside on the porch with three large suitcases.
Darlene Mercer pushed forcefully past me into the elegant foyer.
"Grant said I am staying here," she announced proudly.
"Why on earth would you do that?"
"To make sure you don't steal his house before the divorce is finalized."
Sophie suddenly appeared at the top of the sweeping staircase.
"Grandma?"
Darlene barely even glanced at her seven-year-old granddaughter.
"Go eat your breakfast in the kitchen, child."
Then the doorbell rang a second time.
I pulled the door open again.
Vanessa stood there wearing a pale pink designer maternity dress.
She had matching, incredibly expensive luggage stacked neatly behind her on the porch.
Her left hand rested protectively over her perfectly flat stomach.
Darlene rushed past me with alarming speed.
"Oh, you poor, brave sweetheart!"
She hugged Vanessa like a beloved daughter returning safely from a brutal war.
Then Darlene turned her sharp, judgmental gaze back to me.
"Grant doesn't want Vanessa living all alone in a dangerous apartment while she is pregnant."
My stomach tightened into a painful, burning knot.
Darlene smiled a wicked, deeply triumphant smile.
"So she is moving in with us."
Vanessa looked directly into my eyes with a sickening expression of fake sympathy.
"I hope this doesn't make things too uncomfortable for you, Evelyn."
In my purse, sitting just seven inches from my hand, was medical proof that I was pregnant too.
But I forced myself to smile warmly at both of them.
"No," I said smoothly.
"Actually, Vanessa, this is perfect."
I stepped aside and gestured gracefully toward the grand living room.
"Please, make yourself completely at home."
Because at that exact moment, I realized something neither Grant nor his foolish mother understood about me.
If they wanted to bring their entire treacherous conspiracy under my own roof, I was going to let them.
I was going to use this extreme proximity to systematically destroy them.
And I was going to find out exactly whose baby Vanessa Blake was really carrying.
"Let me help you with those heavy bags," I offered sweetly.
Vanessa carelessly handed me a heavy leather duffel bag.
As the bag shifted in my hands, a small metal object slipped out of the side pocket and crashed onto the marble floor.
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It was a silver, custom-engraved money clip.
It was the exact same money clip my father was buried with three years ago.
