Chapter 6 - The Lawyer with the Vance Blood
Naomi became a different person after the call.
Not frightened.
Focused.
She contacted Austin police, then a neighbor near her mother’s house, then a retired detective she trusted. Within seven minutes, we knew Helen Vale’s front door was open, her car was in the driveway, and she was gone.
No broken windows.
No obvious blood.
No body.
Just an empty house and a tea kettle screaming on the stove.
Naomi stood at the safe-house window with her arms folded.
“I should go.”
“No,” I said.
“That is my mother.”
“And somebody wants you to run exactly where they expect.”
She turned on me.
“You don’t get to tell me how to handle this.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
“I’m telling you because you told me the same thing when Camille was being followed.”
Her anger flickered.
Then collapsed into fear.
“I have never seen that photograph.”
Gabriel sat at the dining table.
“You wouldn’t have.”
Naomi spun toward him.
“Stop speaking like you were there.”
“I was ten.”
“You said that.”
“I remember Eleanor being pregnant.”
Her face froze.
“She hid it?”
“From the public. Not from the family. They said the baby died.”
“Did you see a funeral?”
“No.”
“Then you know nothing.”
“I know Adrian cried for three days.”
Naomi’s throat moved.
“Was he my father?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just told Mara I was the baby.”
“I recognized the date, not you. Your birth certificate says June nineteenth, 1993, doesn’t it?”
Naomi stared at him.
“How do you know my birthday?”
“Because I investigated every attorney Mara contacted after she hired you.”
I turned.
“You what?”
Gabriel did not apologize.
“I needed to know who might be compromised.”
Naomi laughed bitterly.
“And apparently I was.”
“No. Apparently you were hidden.”
“That is not comforting.”
Leo began fussing.
I lifted him, then Oliver woke too, as if the twins had made a pact never to let terror occur without adding sleep deprivation.
Naomi watched me juggle both babies.
“Give me one.”
I handed her Oliver.
She held him stiffly for a second.
Then instinct took over.
She supported his head and rocked gently.
“Your family is exhausting,” she whispered to him.
Gabriel said, “Technically—”
“Finish that sentence and I will throw you through the window.”
For the first time, he smiled.
It vanished when his phone buzzed.
He read a message.
“We need to leave.”
Naomi didn’t move. “Why?”
“The address is burned.”
“What?”
“Someone just photographed my car outside.”
I felt my pulse jump.
“How do you know?”
“A neighbor posted it to a private community alert group. Said an unfamiliar sedan has been parked near the road for twenty minutes.”
Naomi grabbed her laptop.
“We’re moving.”
“Where?”
She looked at me.
“Somewhere the Vances would never expect you to go.”
Thirty-five minutes later, we entered a gated retirement community south of Austin and pulled into the garage of a small brick house belonging to Judge Elena Ruiz’s older sister.
I stared at Naomi.
“You brought me to the judge’s family?”
“No. The judge has no idea. Her sister is my godmother.”
Of course she was.
Austin had become a city made entirely of secret relatives.
Dr. Teresa Ruiz opened the door wearing gardening gloves.
She looked at Naomi once and hugged her.
“You saw the picture.”
Naomi went rigid.
“You knew?”
Teresa’s face crumpled.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Naomi stepped back.
“You knew?”
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
Teresa looked at me, Gabriel, the twins.
“Come inside.”
We gathered in her kitchen.
Teresa made coffee nobody drank.
Then she told the story.
In 1993, Teresa was a medical resident at a private maternity clinic. Eleanor Vance arrived under an assumed name, pregnant and terrified.
“She said the baby could destroy the family.”
Naomi’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Who was my father?”
“I never knew.”
“What happened after I was born?”
“A woman named Helen came to the clinic.”
“My mother.”
“The woman who raised you.”
Naomi flinched.
Teresa corrected herself. “Helen was Eleanor’s college roommate. She couldn’t have children. Eleanor asked her to take you.”
“Just like that?”
“No. There were lawyers. Documents. Money.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel leaned forward. “Victor arranged it?”
Teresa nodded.
Naomi stood.
“I need air.”
I followed her to the back porch.
For a moment we watched wind move through live oak branches.
“I spent my career fighting people who treat children like assets,” Naomi said.
I knew where her mind had gone.
To the discharge room.
To my sons.
To the two hundred thousand dollars.
“Maybe that’s why you fight.”
She looked at me.
“You think fate did this?”
“No. I think trauma has a way of choosing our professions before we understand why.”
She gave a broken laugh.
“Very lawyerly.”
“I’ve been around you too long.”
The back door opened.
Teresa stepped outside.
“Naomi, there’s something else.”
Naomi closed her eyes.
“Of course there is.”
“Three weeks after you were born, Eleanor came back.”
“Why?”
“She wanted you.”
Naomi turned.
“What?”
“She changed her mind.”
“What did Helen do?”
“Refused.”
“And Victor?”
“He made the arrangement permanent.”
“How?”
Teresa hesitated.
“Money. Threats. I don’t know.”
“Where is Helen now?”
“I wish I knew.”
Gabriel came onto the porch holding his phone.
“I might.”
He showed us a location pin.
An industrial storage facility east of town.
“Her phone pinged there eight minutes ago.”
Naomi took one step toward the door.
Gabriel blocked her.
“No.”
“Move.”
“It could be bait.”
“It probably is.”
“And you’re going anyway?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll go.”
Naomi stared at him.
“Why would you risk yourself for me?”
Gabriel’s face softened.
“Because if that photograph is right, you may be my sister.”
She went still.
“Half sister.”
“Still family.”
“That word has not impressed me today.”
It didn’t impress any of us.
We called police.
They reached the storage facility before we did.
Unit 314 was unlocked.
Inside, they found Helen’s phone.
Her purse.
A chair.
And a projector.
When detectives powered it on, a video began playing against the concrete wall.
Victor Vance appeared on screen.
Not old Victor.
Young Victor.
The timestamp read 1995.
He sat behind a desk and spoke to someone off camera.
“If Eleanor’s first child ever resurfaces, the trust becomes vulnerable.”
A man asked, “And the girl?”
“Gone.”
“And Adrian’s boy?”
“Gone.”
“What about Julian?”
Victor smiled.
“Julian will be whatever I tell him he is.”
The recording jumped.
Another clip.
Eleanor was crying.
“You promised Naomi would be safe.”
Victor said, “She will be, as long as you remember which child stayed.”
The screen went black.
Then a final message appeared.
MARA, YOU HAVE FORTY-EIGHT HOURS.
RETURN THE TRUST AMENDMENT.
WITHDRAW THE CUSTODY CHALLENGE.
OR HELEN VALE BECOMES THE FIRST PERSON YOU LOSE.
Naomi stared at the wall.
I felt both babies against my chest, alive and warm.
For six months I had built a plan around documents, accounts, and legal pressure.
Victor had just changed the battlefield.
Naomi whispered, “We give him what he wants.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
Her head snapped toward me.
“That is my mother.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t say no.”
“We do not give Victor the only leverage keeping my sons alive and call it rescue.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Then what do you suggest?”
I looked at Gabriel.
He already understood.
“We give Victor a document,” I said.
“Just not the real one.”
Gabriel smiled slowly.
For the first time since the hospital, I saw something in him that looked exactly like a Vance.
May you like
Ruthlessness.
“Now,” he said, “you’re thinking like family.”
