Chapter 7 - THE ACCUSATION
“No!” Jolene screamed, throwing her arms in front of our mother. “You can’t arrest her! She’s an elderly woman with a fractured hip!”
“Your mother’s hip healed two years ago, Miss Bennett,” Detective Logan said coldly, pulling out a pair of steel handcuffs. “We reviewed her medical scans from the clinic. She has been fully mobile since November 2024.”
Jolene turned her head slowly, staring at Mom in absolute horror.
“What?” Jolene whispered. “Mom... your hip was healed?”
Mom didn't answer her. She glared at me with pure, unadulterated hatred, her weak, frail act vanishing entirely as she stood tall, unassisted, without even leaning on her cane.
“You ungrateful, selfish little snake!” Mom roared at me, her face contorted in rage. “I should have left you with nothing! Your father loved you more than he loved us, and you used his memory to destroy this family!”
“My father left me a trust to protect my future,” I said, tears burning my eyes, though my voice remained iron-strong. “You stole it to enable Jolene’s vanity.”
Detective Logan stepped behind Mom, pulling her arms behind her back and clicking the handcuffs around her wrists.
“Beatrice Bennett, you have the right to remain silent,” Logan read formally. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Mom struggled against the cuffs, screaming at the top of her lungs as the officers guided her down the porch steps toward the unmarked SUV. Neighbors were stepping out onto their lawns, taking out their phones, watching the suburban matriarch dragged away in chains.
Jolene stood alone on the porch, her hands trembling, looking at me like I was a stranger who had just dropped from the sky.
“Mave...” Jolene whimpered, her voice cracking into a pathetic, childlike whine. “What about me? What am I supposed to do? The foreclosure notice... the bank is taking the house on Friday!”
I walked up the stone steps, stopping two feet away from my older sister.
I looked at her unwashed hair, her designer tracksuit, her empty, selfish eyes.
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“You’re a freelance luxury event planner, Jolene,” I whispered softly, mirroring the exact words she had sneered at me for three years. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Some of us have work to do.”
I turned on my heel, walked down the steps, and climbed into Marcus Vance’s car, leaving Jolene weeping frantically on the porch of the house she was about to lose forever.
