Chapter 4 - The Price of Silence
Alice Montgomery was crying, but nobody came to comfort her.
The wealthy women who had shared her bridge table for fifteen years, who had kissed both her cheeks when they walked into the club an hour ago, were subtly shifting their chairs backward, putting physical distance between their couture gowns and the woman who had traded her daughter’s flesh for an insurance payout.
“Kristen,” Alice wept, her trembling hands fluttering over her pearls. “We did it to protect the family! We were trying to keep us together! If the truth had come out, your father would have been indicted! You would have lost your home! We did what any parents would do in an impossible situation!”
“Any parents?”
The voice didn't come from me. It came from Richard St. Clair.
The patriarch of the St. Clair estate stood up slowly. He was seventy years old, with white hair and the razor-sharp posture of a retired appellate judge. He looked at my father with unmitigated, visceral disgust.
“You allowed your child to bear the physical and emotional scars of a felony arson,” Richard said, his voice echoing off the limestone columns. “You silenced her for over a decade. And then you brought her into this club, stood by while your other daughter ripped her clothes off to mock her deformity, and sat there drinking champagne?”
“Richard, please,” Mark pleaded, raising both palms, his tailored cuffs soaked with spilled wine. “You don't understand the pressures I was under! The banks—the creditors were threatening everything! We took care of Kristen! We paid for every surgery!”
“You paid for four surgeries,” I cut in, my voice slicing through his excuses. “The bare minimum required to restore movement to my left arm. And then, when the plastic surgeon told you that secondary reconstructive procedures could reduce the scarring by seventy percent, you said no.”
Jessica’s head snapped toward our parents. “What?”
“Page forty-two of the medical records,” Investigator Wright said, flipping a sheet from his folio and holding it aloft. “Dr. Robert Chen’s clinical notes from October 2015. Mr. Mark Montgomery formally declined the recommended skin-smoothing laser therapy and micro-grafting for Kristen Montgomery. The reason given in the billing logs: Non-essential cosmetic expenditure. Funds reallocated to secondary dependent’s educational trust.”
A shudder ran through the room.
“You took the money that was supposed to fix my body,” I said, looking at Jessica, “and you bought Jessica a condo on Newbury Street. You told me the scars were my cross to bear. You told me that if I loved my sister, I would accept being the ugly twin, the quiet twin, the one who stayed home so Jessica could shine.”
Jessica looked at our father, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. “Dad... you told me Kristen didn't want the surgeries. You told me she had a panic attack every time she went near a hospital!”
“He lied to you, Jessica,” I said softly. “Just like he lied to me. He used my scars as a weapon to keep me manageable, and he used your guilt as a chain to keep you dependent on his money. He made you believe that as long as you were the perfect, glamorous socialite, the crime never happened. But the crime did happen. And tonight, the bill came due.”
Investigator Wright reached into his briefcase once more. This time, he didn't pull out medical records or insurance forms.
He pulled out an embossed, ivory-colored document bearing the official seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Probate Court, alongside a digital tablet connected to a portable cellular modem.
“Let’s discuss why this party was scheduled for tonight,” Wright said, looking at the entire Montgomery family. “The thirtieth birthday of Kristen and Jessica Montgomery.”
Mark’s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars. He took a jerky step toward the table where the tablet lay, his face turning an alarming shade of mottled purple.
“No,” Mark whispered. “You don't have access to that. That trust was sealed under private family arbitration!”
“Your private arbitration was dissolved two hours ago by emergency order of Judge Patricia Hall,” Wright replied with a grim, thin-lipped smile. “When evidence of criminal fraud exceeding four million dollars is presented to a probate judge, family secrecy agreements tend to evaporate very quickly.”
Jessica looked between them, her chest heaving against her tight silk gown. “What trust? What are you talking about?”
I looked at my twin sister, feeling a sudden, unexpected wave of pity wash over me. She had spent twelve years believing she was the queen of the world, completely blind to the fact that our parents were using her as a pawn in a game far larger and far dirtier than a burned-out boathouse.
“Grandmother Evelyn died seven years ago, Jessica,” I said quietly. “You remember her will, don't you? She left each of us a personal bequest of fifty thousand dollars, and the rest of her estate went into a blind commercial trust managed by Dad.”
Jessica nodded numbly. “Yes. Dad said the trust was tied up in maritime investments until we turned thirty-five.”
“Another lie,” I said.
Investigator Wright tapped the screen of the tablet. The four massive projection screens mounted on the ballroom walls—the screens that had spent the last two hours displaying high-resolution photographs of Jessica modeling on yachts in Nantucket—flickered.
The photographs vanished.
May you like
In their place appeared the scanned, holographic text of the Last Will and Testament of Evelyn Montgomery, dated September 14, 2017.
And at the top of Section Four, highlighted in stark, luminous yellow, were four sentences that made every guest in the room lean forward in their chairs.
