Chapter 17 - The Warning
|
I stood frozen behind the door, my hand gripping the cold frame so tightly my fingers went numb.
"Engaged?" I repeated, the word tasting bitter and metallic on my tongue.
"Please," Jessica sobbed quietly, clutching the wet folder against her chest. "Please let me in, Elena. He told me you were insane. He told me you robbed him and destroyed his life... but yesterday, I found something in his desk drawer."
I stared at her pale, terrified face for three agonizing seconds. Then, I unhooked the security chain and opened the door wide.
"Come inside," I said softly.
Jessica stepped into the warm entryway, shivering violently, water dripping from her coat onto the rug. I led her into my home office at the end of the hall, closing the door quietly so my mother wouldn't hear us.
I brought her a thick towel and a glass of warm water. She wrapped the towel around her shoulders, her hands shaking so hard the water sloshed over the rim of the glass.
"Tell me what happened," I said, sitting down across from her at my mahogany desk.
"We met eight months ago," Jessica stammered, wiping tears from her wet cheeks. "He was so charming, Elena. He bought me flowers, took me to nice dinners... he told me he was a successful real estate consultant whose ex-wife had ruined him financially during a bitter divorce."
A cold, familiar anger stirred in the pit of my stomach, but I kept my voice calm. "And you believed him."
"Of course I did!" Jessica cried softly. "He proposed to me two weeks ago. He asked me to move into a new house with him... but then he asked me to take out a fifty-thousand-dollar personal loan under my name to help him 'seed' a new development project."
I closed my eyes, letting out a slow, heavy breath.
It was the exact same script. The exact same playbook. Brandon hadn't changed a single thing. He had simply found a younger, more naive victim to feed his parasitic lifestyle.
"Did you give him the money?" I asked quietly.
"No," Jessica whispered, her eyes filling with terror. "Because yesterday afternoon, while he was at work, I went through the filing cabinet in his apartment looking for his tax documents for our mortgage application."
May you like
She placed the wet brown paper folder onto my desk and opened it with trembling fingers.
"I didn't find tax documents, Elena," Jessica rasped out, her voice dropping into a hollow whisper. "I found these."
