Chapter 16 - Clothes on the Curb
The morning of the closing ceremony arrived crisp, cold, and blindingly bright. I stood in the small bathroom of the shelter, staring at my reflection in the mirror. The split lip had mostly healed, leaving only a faint, jagged pink line. The massive, ugly purple bruise on my cheekbone had faded into a dull, yellowish-green shadow.
I didn't reach for the heavy concealer. I didn't try to hide the evidence of his violence. I wore the fading bruise proudly, an undeniable badge of my survival.
My phone buzzed on the sink counter. It was a text message from Marlene.
She had sent a high-resolution photograph of the front curb outside my father’s house. Piled haphazardly in the snow and dirty street slush were all of my clothes, my favorite books, and the framed photographs of my late parents.
Her accompanying text message read: You have absolutely nothing now. Do not ever come back.
I didn't cry. I simply saved the photograph to my secure cloud drive, adding it to the mountain of evidence that was about to bury her alive.
I turned away from the mirror and zipped up the garment bag Elena had brought me. I stepped into a perfectly tailored, razor-sharp white suit. It was the color of absolute, uncompromising clarity.
Elena and Detective Shaw were waiting for me by the unmarked police SUV in the shelter's parking lot.
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"Are you ready for this, Lena?" Shaw asked, opening the heavy rear door for me.
"I've been ready since 3:07 a.m.," I replied, clutching my father’s original, leather-bound accounting ledger tightly against my chest. "Let's go take back my company."
