Chapter 5 - The Shield and the Badge
Leo’s blue crayon snapped between his small fingers.
The sharp crack echoed in the little kitchen like a gunshot. The boy’s hazel eyes widened, and he slid down from the chair, darting immediately behind Delia’s legs, his tiny hands clutching the fabric of her skirt until the seams strained.
“Mama?” Leo whispered, his voice trembling like a leaf in a gale. “Is that the bad doctor?”
“Hush, sweetheart. Stay behind me,” Delia said, her face ghostly white. She looked around the tiny apartment like an animal cornered in a cage. There was no back door. The third-floor fire escape was bolted shut for winter maintenance.
The pounding came again, rattling the brass deadbolt in its wooden frame.
“Open the door, Miss Vance, or we will breach the entrance under emergency custodial statutes!”
Delia took a step toward the door, her knees shaking so badly she had to brace herself against the counter. “They’re taking him,” she breathed, looking at Eleanor with raw, bottomless terror. “Paige filed the emergency abandonment papers this morning. If they put him in state holding tonight, he won't get his nebulizer treatment. He’ll choke.”
Eleanor didn't move toward the door.
Instead, she calmly picked up her teacup, walked over to the kitchen table, and sat down in the wooden chair Leo had just vacated. She smoothed the front of her twelve-dollar thrift store coat, reached into her leather handbag, and pulled out her burner phone.
With thumb strokes practiced over decades, she dialed a ten-digit number from memory.
“Arthur,” Eleanor said into the receiver, her voice dropping into the smooth, lethal baritone of an executive issuing an execution order. “I’m at 414 East Gaston Street, apartment 3B. I have two uniformed deputies outside the door attempting an unlawful child seizure orchestrated by the Prescott family. I want Chatham County Sheriff Marcus Bell on this line in thirty seconds, or his re-election campaign fund ceases to exist by sundown.”
She hung up without waiting for an answer.
Delia stared at her in utter disbelief. “Who... who was that?”
“My attorney,” Eleanor said quietly. “Now, Delia. Open the door.”
“Mrs. Whitmore, they’ll take him—”
“Open the door, child. Let them try.”
Delia took a shuddering breath, reached for the knob, and pulled the door open.
Standing in the dimly lit hallway were two burly sheriff’s deputies in brown uniforms, their utility belts creaking with heavy gear. Standing behind them, draped in an ivory cashmere wrap and smelling of expensive sandalwood perfume, was Paige Prescott’s mother, Victoria Prescott.
Victoria was a woman of sixty, with hair dyed the exact color of champagne and a mouth perpetually curled into an expression of finding sour milk in her refrigerator.
“There she is,” Victoria said, flicking an imaginary piece of lint from her sleeve. “Officers, that is the woman. She is completely unstable, living in squalor, and currently holding a child who legally belongs under court-ordered protective supervision.”
The lead deputy, a broad-shouldered man with a mustache and a nametag that read HARRIS, stepped across the threshold, holding a blue folder.
“Delia Vance? I have an emergency removal order signed by Judge Thaddeus Miller. You are required to surrender the minor child, Leo Vance, to social services pending a fitness hearing on Tuesday.”
“No!” Delia cried, stepping back and blocking Leo with her entire body. “Judge Miller is on the board of Victoria Prescott’s garden club! This is illegal! He has chronic asthma, you can't take him to a facility!”
Deputy Harris sighed, a man accustomed to unpleasant domestic calls, reaching for his handcuffs. “Ma’am, do not make this difficult. If you resist, I will arrest you for obstruction of justice, and the boy goes into custody anyway.”
Victoria Prescott smiled, an icy, victorious smirk that mirrored her daughter’s exactly. “Be sensible, Delia. A boy needs resources. Julian and Paige can give him a life on the bluff. You can barely afford heat.”
Victoria’s gaze then drifted past Delia’s shoulder, landing on the elderly woman sitting quietly at the kitchen table.
Victoria’s eyes scanned the yellowed tea mugs, the stained brown wool coat, the unstyled gray hair tucked beneath the thrift-store knitted cap. A look of profound disgust crossed Victoria’s manicured face.
“Good heavens,” Victoria scoffed. “Did you hire a street bag lady to babysit while you dodge court summons? The depravity of this household is worse than Paige described.”
Eleanor did not flinch. She picked up a teaspoon, gently stirring the lukewarm tea, her silver spoon clinking softly against the ceramic rim.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
“Victoria,” Eleanor said, her voice quiet, almost lazy.
Victoria froze.
The older Prescott woman frowned, her brow furrowing in confusion. Something about the cadence of that voice—the absolute, unyielding coldness of it—triggered an instinctual memory deep within her social registry.
“Excuse me?” Victoria snapped. “How dare you address me by my first name, you old—”
Before Victoria could finish the insult, Deputy Harris’s radio squawked loudly, followed immediately by the sharp ring of his personal department cell phone clipped to his chest pocket.
The deputy frowned, reaching down and unclipping the device. “Harris.”
The voice on the other end was so loud, so frantic, that every person in the tiny apartment could hear it clearly. It was the deep, booming Southern drawl of Sheriff Marcus Bell, and he was screaming.
“Harris! Are you at 414 East Gaston? Answer me right damn now!”
Harris straightened his spine, his hand dropping away from his utility belt. “Yes, Sheriff. We’re executing the emergency custody warrant for Judge Miller—”
“You touch one single hair on that boy’s head, Harris, and I will personally strip your badge and have you directing traffic in the salt marsh until you retire! Who is in that apartment with Miss Vance?”
Harris swallowed hard, glancing nervously toward the table. “Just... Miss Vance, the boy, Mrs. Prescott, and an older woman in a brown coat.”
There was a horrific pause on the line. Then a sickening sound of paper tearing over the speaker.
“Harris. Put that phone on speaker right now.”
Harris hit the screen with a trembling thumb.
Sheriff Bell’s voice filled the room, breathless and terrified. “Mrs. Whitmore? Eleanor? Ma'am, are you there?”
Victoria Prescott’s jaw dropped so hard her pearls bounced against her collarbone.
May you like
Eleanor took a slow sip of her tea, set the cup down with mathematical precision, and looked directly into Victoria’s horrified, bulging eyes.
“I’m here, Marcus,” Eleanor said softly into the room. “And you have five minutes to get this garbage out of my sight before I buy your mortgage note from Savannah National Bank.”
