Chapter 7 - THE BOY WHO BELIEVED HE WAS A KILLER
“You pushed him away from you, Nicholas. That doesn't mean you pushed him down the stairs.”
Teresa stood in the middle of her small living room.
Nicholas stared at her.
“What's the difference?”
“Your father was still standing after you pushed him.”
The words seemed to strike him harder than any accusation.
“What?”
“I remember him stumbling backward. I remember you trying to get away.”
She touched her forehead.
“But he hadn't fallen yet.”
Nicholas gripped the broken watch.
“Then why did I keep saying it was my fault?”
“Because you were a frightened boy who thought everything your father did was somehow your responsibility.”
He looked toward the window.
“And you let me believe you killed him?”
Teresa's face crumpled.
“I never wanted you to believe that.”
“But you disappeared.”
“I was told that if I came back, the police would make you testify against me. That you might be accused yourself if the story changed.”
She sat down.
“Celia showed me your statement. She said your father's associates were demanding answers. She told me she'd keep you safe if I stayed away.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“And you believed her?”
“I believed she had the power to hurt you.”
Teresa's voice grew steadier.
“I didn't believe she'd keep me away forever. At first, I thought I'd wait until you were eighteen. Then she said you didn't want to see me. Every time I tried, there was another threat.”
She pointed toward the wooden box.
“I saved everything because I thought someday you might ask why I stopped coming.”
Nicholas knelt before her.
“Mom, you never stopped.”
She covered his hand with hers.
“No, sweetheart. I didn't.”
I stood beside the kitchen doorway.
I'd seen them cry before.
But this time, something was different.
Nicholas wasn't asking his mother to prove she loved him.
He was finally beginning to believe it.
Then his phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His expression hardened.
“The board voted.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“What happened?”
“Celia has enough proxies to suspend my financial authority pending an internal review.”
His mother looked frightened.
“Does that mean she's taking everything?”
“She's trying.”
Nicholas looked at Daniel.
“And the Cicero Gardens sale?”
“The outside buyer still intends to proceed. The residents have filed objections, and the financial review may delay the transfer, but nothing is settled.”
Nicholas slipped the watch into his pocket.
“Then we need to move faster.”
Back at the mansion, Celia was sitting in his office.
She'd already moved several folders onto the desk.
When Nicholas entered, she looked almost relieved.
“I'm glad you're back. We need to discuss the company's future.”
He stopped in front of her.
“You used my father's death to get control of my mother's money.”
Celia's expression hardened.
“That money kept this family functioning.”
“Some of it went into your properties.”
“Some of it paid people your father had harmed.”
Nicholas paused.
“What people?”
Celia opened a folder.
“Families of dockworkers. Men who were injured because Anthony ignored safety complaints. Widows who never received the compensation they were promised.”
Nicholas looked at the names.
There were dozens.
Many of the payments had been made anonymously.
I watched his anger change into confusion.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because your father was your hero.”
“He wasn't.”
“He was for a very long time.”
Celia closed the folder.
“I did things after his death that I wish I'd done differently. But don't pretend every dollar I moved went into my pocket.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“You helped those families?”
“Yes.”
“And used my mother's trust to do it without asking her?”
Celia's face tightened.
“I made the decisions I thought were necessary.”
“You also bought property in your own name.”
“I stabilized assets your father's debts would have swallowed.”
“And you kept me from seeing my mother.”
Celia lowered her eyes.
Nicholas stepped closer.
“That's the part you can't explain away.”
For a moment, her confident expression disappeared.
“You were all I had left of my brother.”
Nicholas spoke softly.
“And you were so afraid of losing me that you made sure I lost someone else.”
Celia looked wounded.
Then her face hardened again.
“You have no idea what happened on that staircase.”
“Then tell me.”
She shook her head.
“Not while you're determined to see me as a monster.”
Nicholas turned toward the door.
“I don't need you to be a monster. I need you to stop lying.”
That evening, the financial investigators confirmed that large portions of Teresa's trust had been used without proper authorization.
Some money had gone toward genuine assistance for injured workers.
Other transfers had funded property purchases benefiting Celia.
And the signatures approving several recent transactions appeared to have been copied from Nicholas's business records.
The investigators recommended preserving the accounts and challenging the disputed transactions.
Nicholas listened without interrupting.
Then he did something I hadn't expected.
He instructed the legitimate businesses under his remaining control to cooperate with the review.
He also arranged separate funding to protect employee payroll and emergency housing assistance.
Daniel looked startled.
“Some of the older associates won't appreciate you opening the books.”
Nicholas looked at him.
“They've had twenty years of people being afraid to ask questions.”
He touched the scar near his temple.
“Look what that cost us.”
Later, I found him sitting alone beneath his father's portrait.
He held the silver watch.
“Emma, when you look at me, do you see my father?”
“No.”
“You should. I've spent most of my life trying to be him.”
“Then you've spent most of your life trying to be someone you never fully knew.”
Nicholas looked at me.
“Maybe that's what scares me.”
I sat beside him.
“My mother says becoming a better person doesn't erase the things you've done. It means you stop making excuses for them.”
He gave a small smile.
“She sounds wise.”
“She'd appreciate hearing that. She usually thinks I don't listen.”
He laughed.
It was brief.
But it was real.
Then I remembered something Teresa had said about keeping everything.
“The letters,” I said.
“What about them?”
“Your mother saved everything Celia sent. Maybe she kept things she never mailed too.”
Nicholas rose immediately.
We returned to Teresa's apartment that evening.
She welcomed us with tea.
When Nicholas explained what we were looking for, she brought the wooden box to the kitchen table.
Beneath the photographs lay a faded birthday card.
It had never been sealed.
The front showed a small birthday cake.
Inside, Teresa had written a message shortly after Anthony's death.
Most of it was a loving note to her son.
But the final lines had been crossed out.
Nicholas held the card toward the light.
He could still read the words beneath the ink.
I wish I could tell you why your father frightened us that night. I wish you didn't have to remember what he took from the drawer.
Nicholas frowned.
“What drawer?”
Teresa reached for the card.
But he gently held it away.
There was one final sentence beneath the crossing-out.
Nicholas read it aloud.
I pray you never remember the gun.
He looked up.
Teresa's face had gone white.
May you like
Nicholas stared at his mother.
“What gun, Mom?”
