Chapter 6
The next three hours were the longest of my life.
The police were called, an Amber Alert issued, every cop in the city looking for Mia, for Helen, for the black SUV.
I sat in the police station, my hands shaking so bad I could barely hold a cup of coffee, Elias beside me, calling every contact we had, every politician, every cop, every reporter we knew, begging them to help find her.
Mom and Dad showed up an hour later, Mom crying, Dad yelling at the police to do their jobs, like this was somehow anyone’s fault but Helen’s.
Mark came too, his face pale, refusing to look me in the eye.
I didn’t talk to any of them.
I just stared at the photo of Mia the police had taped to the wall—her smiling, holding her bunny, her new pink brace on her leg, the sun in her hair.
I’d promised her.
I’d promised I’d never let anyone hurt her again.
And now she was gone.
Taken by the one person I knew would hurt her just to hurt me.
At ten p.m., the lead detective got a call.
He hung up, turning to me, his face tight.
“We found them,” he said. “At the old Langford summer house upstate. Helen is there. Mia is there. She’s okay. She’s unhurt. But Helen is refusing to come out. She’s locked herself and Mia in the master bedroom. Says she’ll only talk to you.”
I was on my feet before he finished talking.
“Take me there,” I said.
The drive upstate took two hours.
The summer house was dark, surrounded by police cars, lights flashing, officers with guns standing behind their cruisers, megaphones in hand.
I ran up the porch steps, the detective yelling after me to wait, to let them handle it.
I didn’t listen.
I banged on the front door, screaming Helen’s name.
A minute later, the lock clicked.
Helen opened the door, her hair messy, her white dress stained, her eyes red, a crazy look on her face.
Mia was standing behind her, her hand in Helen’s, her face streaked with tears, her bunny in the other hand. When she saw me, she screamed.
“MOMMY!”
She tried to run to me, but Helen held her tight, yanking her back.
“Not so fast,” Helen said, her voice slurred, like she’d been drinking. “You think you can just take her? You think you can win? You never win, Ellie. You never have. Grandma always loved me best. Everyone always loved me best. You were just the mistake she had to put up with.”
I held my hands up, slow, calm, like I was approaching a wild animal.
“Let her go, Helen,” I said, my voice steady. “She’s scared. She doesn’t belong in the middle of this.”
Helen laughed, a sharp, crazy sound.
“She belongs with me,” she said. “She’s my daughter too. I raised her. I bought her things. I loved her. You just used her. You used her to get Grandma’s money. You used her to make everyone feel sorry for you. You don’t deserve her.”
Mia was crying harder now, kicking her good leg, trying to get free.
“Let me go!” she screamed. “I want my mommy! You’re mean! You hurt my leg!”
Helen’s face twisted with rage.
She raised her hand, like she was going to hit her.
I moved before I thought.
I lunged forward, grabbing Mia, yanking her out of Helen’s arms, pulling her tight against my chest, turning my back to Helen to shield her.
Helen screamed, lunging at me, her nails scratching at my face, my arms, my back.
The police ran in, pulling her off me, slamming her against the wall, handcuffing her, reading her her rights.
She screamed the whole time, calling me every name in the book, threatening to kill me, to kill Mia, to burn everything I loved to the ground.
They dragged her out, kicking and screaming.
I sank to the floor, holding Mia so tight I could barely breathe, crying into her hair, checking her over and over to make sure she was okay, that she wasn’t hurt.
“I’m here, baby,” I sobbed. “I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I’m never letting you go again.”
She clung to me, her small body shaking, crying into my shirt.
“I was so scared, Mommy,” she mumbled. “She said you didn’t want me anymore. She said she was my new mommy. But I didn’t believe her. I knew you’d come for me.”
I held her tighter, my heart breaking.
Helen was charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, violation of a restraining order, and a dozen other crimes. She was denied bail, sent to the county jail to await trial.
The custody ruling was a formality after that.
The judge granted me full legal and physical custody of Mia, no visitation for Helen for a minimum of five years, supervised visits only for Mom and Dad, pending mandatory family therapy.
Daniel Pierce, the corrupt auditor, was arrested for perjury and fraud, his testimony thrown out.
The board of Langford Group fired Helen immediately, voting unanimously to name me the new CEO, effective immediately.
I should have been happy.
I’d won.
I’d gotten Mia back. I’d gotten the company. I’d proven everyone wrong.
But I wasn’t.
Because I knew Helen.
Even in jail, she had connections. Even in jail, she could still hurt me.
And she wasn’t done fighting.
I was right.
A week later, Elias called me, his voice urgent.
“Helen is out,” he said. “Her lawyers appealed the bail denial. Found a judge who owed her dad a favor. She’s out on a five million dollar bond. And she just filed an emergency motion to invalidate Grandma’s will. She says she has a new will. Dated three days before Grandma died. That leaves everything to her.”
My blood ran cold.
“That’s impossible,” I said. “Grandma was in a coma the last week of her life. She couldn’t hold a pen, let alone sign a will.”
“Her lawyers say she signed it in the presence of two witnesses,” Elias said. “Mark and your mother.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Mark and Mom.
They’d helped her forge it.
“When is the hearing?” I said.
“Tomorrow,” Elias said. “If the judge rules in her favor, she gets the company. She gets the foundation. She gets everything. And she’ll use every penny of it to come after you and Mia. We need to prove the will is fake. Fast.”
That night, I went through Grandma’s files again, every paper, every USB drive, every journal entry, looking for anything that could prove the new will was a forgery.
I found it at three a.m.
In Grandma’s journal, the last entry, dated two weeks before she died, the week before she’d fallen into the coma.
She’d written about Helen.
About how she’d caught her stealing from the company.
About how she’d changed her will to leave everything to me.
About how she’d had her signature notarized, and recorded the whole will signing on video, just in case Helen tried to forge something later.
I jumped up, running to the safe in my closet, pulling out the old box of Grandma’s things I’d kept for years.
At the bottom, under a stack of old photos, was a DVD.
Labeled in Grandma’s handwriting: WILL SIGNING – FOR ELLIE, IF I NEED IT.
I put it in my laptop.
The video played.
Grandma, sitting at her kitchen table, the lawyer beside her, two independent witnesses, clearly of sound mind, clearly signing the will that left everything to me, clearly saying she was doing it of her own free will, that no one had pressured her, that Helen was to get nothing because of her greed and cruelty.
It was irrefutable.
I called Elias, playing the video for him over the phone.
He whooped.
“That’s it!” he said. “That’s the smoking gun! We’ll play this in court tomorrow. Helen’s will gets thrown out. She goes back to jail for forgery. It’s over, Ellie. You won.”
I hung up, looking over at Mia, asleep in her bed, her face peaceful.
It was over.
Finally.
The next morning, the courtroom was packed again.
Helen was there, out on bail, wearing another expensive dress, a smug smile on her face, Mom and Mark beside her, looking nervous.
Her lawyer laid out the new will, the one with Mom and Mark’s signatures as witnesses, calling them to the stand to swear they’d seen Grandma sign it three days before she died.
They lied through their teeth.
Then Elias stood up.
“Your Honor,” he said. “The defense has irrefutable proof that this will is a forgery. We have video of the actual will signing, dated two weeks before the decedent’s death, clearly showing her of sound mind, clearly stating her wishes. And we have forensic evidence that the signature on the so-called ‘new will’ was copied from a birthday card Grandma sent Helen five years ago.”
The judge ordered the video played.
The whole courtroom watched, silent, as Grandma spoke her wishes, as she signed the will, as she laughed and told the lawyer she was glad to finally be “done with Helen’s nonsense.”
When the video ended, the courtroom erupted.
Helen’s face went white.
Mom and Mark looked like they were going to be sick.
The judge banged his gavel, his face furious.
He ruled Helen’s will a forgery, threw it out, ordered a criminal investigation into Mom and Mark for perjury and fraud.
He revoked Helen’s bail, ordering her taken into custody immediately, no bond, no appeals.
The bailiffs walked over to Helen, grabbing her arms, pulling her to her feet.
She fought them, screaming, looking straight at me, her face twisted with hatred.
“THIS ISN’T OVER!” she screamed. “YOU THINK YOU’VE WON? I HAVE FRIENDS WHO WILL BURN THIS WHOLE CITY TO THE GROUND BEFORE I LET YOU HAVE IT! YOU AND THAT LITTLE BRAT WILL REGRET THE DAY YOU WERE BORN!”
They dragged her out, still screaming.
I sat there, shaking, Elias squeezing my shoulder.
“It’s over,” he said. “Really over.”
I nodded, tears running down my face.
It was over.
Or so I thought.
A week later, I was in the Langford boardroom, going over the company’s quarterly earnings, when my assistant burst in, her face white.
“Ms. Langford,” she said. “You need to turn on the news. Now.”
I turned on the big screen on the wall.
The headline blared:
HELEN LANGFORD RELEASED FROM JAIL – PENDING APPEAL – FILES HOSTILE TAKEOVER BID FOR LANGFORD GROUP.
The reporter talked fast, the words cutting through me like a knife.
Helen had been released by a federal appeals judge, one who’d been appointed by her godfather, a powerful senator. She’d raised two billion dollars in funding from Voss Industries, Richard Voss’s company, and was offering a 30% premium on all outstanding Langford shares, enough to buy the 49% of the company I didn’t own, enough to take control, enough to fire me, enough to sell the company off piece by piece.
And the worst part?
Half the board had already agreed to sell.
I stared at the screen, my blood running cold.
May you like
Helen wasn’t done.
She was just getting started.
