Chapter 7
Natalie didn’t waste any time.
By that afternoon, she was on every talk show that would have her.
She sat in the studios, wearing a soft maternity dress, her hand resting protectively on her still-flat stomach, tears in her eyes.
*“I never wanted any of this,”* she told Barbara Walters. “I loved Jackson. I truly did. But his mother… she’s a powerful woman. She’s used to getting what she wants. And when she realized I was going to take her son away, she did everything in her power to destroy me.”
*“But the head-shaving?”* Barbara asked. “The security footage? The note?”
*“Forged,”* Natalie said, wiping a tear. “The Westbrooks own half the police force in this city. They own the judges. They own the newspapers. Faking a security tape is child’s play for people like them. And the note? I’ve seen Eleanor practice my handwriting. She’s been planning this for months. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike.”
*“And the baby?”*
*“Jackson’s,”* she said, placing her hand on her stomach. “I know the DNA test said otherwise. But those tests can be manipulated too. Eleanor has the money to make any result say what she wants. I know in my heart this is Jackson’s baby. And I will spend the rest of my life proving it.”
She was good.
I had to give her that.
She was very, very good.
By the end of the week, the tide had turned.
People were no longer sure who to believe.
On one side: a grieving widow and her son, with piles of evidence and a heartfelt press conference.
On the other: a young, pregnant woman who claimed the rich, powerful family was conspiring to ruin her.
America loves an underdog.
And Natalie was playing the underdog card for all it was worth.
The harassment started small.
First, it was comments on social media.
Thousands of them.
**WESTBROOK MURDERERS.**
**ELEANOR SHOULD BE IN JAIL.**
**JACKSON IS A DEADBEAT DAD.**
Then the paparazzi showed up at the house.
They camped on the sidewalk.
They took photos through the windows.
They shouted questions as we came and went.
*“Eleanor, did you kill Frank’s partner?”*
*“Jackson, when are you going to support your child?”*
Then the threats started.
Letters in the mail.
Emails.
Phone calls in the middle of the night.
*“We know what you did.”*
*“You’ll get what’s coming to you.”*
*“Burn in hell.”*
Arthur increased security.
He put two guards at the house.
One at the office.
One with Jackson at all times.
But it was impossible to be everywhere.
And Natalie knew it.
One Tuesday, I was leaving the grocery store.
A woman I had never seen before approached me in the parking lot.
She was smiling.
Friendly.
I thought she was going to ask for an autograph.
Instead, she spit in my face.
“Murderer,” she hissed.
She walked away before the guard could reach her.
I stood there in the parking lot, the spit running down my cheek, and I realized something.
Natalie wasn’t just trying to win a legal case.
She was trying to break us.
She wanted us to be afraid to leave our homes.
She wanted us to second-guess every stranger we passed.
She wanted us to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.
And it was working.
Jackson was becoming paranoid.
He stopped answering the phone.
He stopped going to the office.
He sat in his room all day, watching the news, waiting for the next attack.
Judith was furious.
“Let me go on TV,” she said one night at dinner. “I’ll tell them what she is. I’ll tell them about the night she broke in. About the sedative. About—”
“No,” I said. “That’s what she wants. She wants us reacting. She wants us angry. She wants us to look like the unstable, violent family she’s been describing. Every time we lash out, we give her more ammunition.”
“Then what do we do?” Jackson asked. He looked exhausted. Dark circles under his eyes. He had lost fifteen pounds in a month. “Sit here and take it?”
“No,” I said. “We fight back. But not with anger. With the truth. And with something she never expected.”
I looked at Arthur.
“Tell me everything you have on Marcus Webb,” I said.
“Marcus?” Arthur said. “We know he’s Natalie’s husband. We know they’ve been married for four years. We know he has a criminal record—fraud, embezzlement, did eighteen months in Ohio in 2015. Beyond that, he’s a ghost. No fixed address. No social security number that traces back further than 2014. He’s got at least five aliases that we know of.”
“Find more,” I said. “Find everything. Find his mother. His father. His elementary school teachers. The people he did time with. Someone knows who he really is. Someone knows where the bodies are buried. Metaphorically or otherwise.”
I turned to Jackson.
“And you,” I said. “You’re going back to work. Tomorrow.”
“Mom, I can’t—”
“You can,” I said. “And you will. Because this company is your father’s legacy. And if you let Natalie run you out of the office, she wins. She gets exactly what she wanted all along. You show up tomorrow. You work twelve hours. You make decisions. You lead. And you let the world see that the Westbrooks are not hiding. We are not afraid. And we are not going anywhere.”
He looked at me.
And slowly, he nodded.
The next morning, Jackson walked into the office at seven-thirty.
The paparazzi were there.
They shouted questions.
He didn’t answer.
He just walked through them, head held high, security flanking him.
I watched from the car.
Then I gave my driver a different address.
“Where are we going?” the guard asked.
“To see Natalie,” I said.
The guard’s eyes widened.
“Mrs. Westbrook, I don’t think that’s a good idea—”
“I didn’t ask if you thought it was a good idea,” I said. “I told you where we’re going.”
Natalie and Marcus were staying in a rented house in the hills.
Paid for, no doubt, with money they had stolen from other victims.
The guard knocked on the door.
Marcus answered.
He was tall and handsome, with cold eyes and a scar across his left eyebrow.
He smiled when he saw me.
“Well,” he said. “This is a surprise. Eleanor Westbrook in our humble home. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I want to talk to Natalie,” I said.
He stepped aside.
“Be my guest.”
The house was dark.
The curtains were drawn.
Natalie was sitting on the sofa, watching TV.
She was still wearing the maternity dress.
Her hand was on her stomach.
She smiled when she saw me.
“Eleanor,” she said. “Come to beg? Or come to make a deal?”
I sat across from her.
The guard stood by the door.
Marcus leaned against the mantel, watching.
“I came to offer you a deal,” I said.
Natalie’s smile widened.
“I knew you’d come around,” she said. “How much? Ten million? Twenty? It’s going to take more than that to make this go away, you know. The baby’s going to need things. College. A trust fund. Marcus and I have expensive tastes.”
“I’m not offering you money,” I said.
Her smile faltered.
“Then what?”
“I’m offering you a choice,” I said. “You can drop all the nonsense about Frank’s partner. You can go on television and tell the world you made the whole thing up. You can plead guilty to the charges against you. You can do five years in a minimum-security facility. And when you get out, you and Marcus can take whatever money you have left and disappear. Never come within a thousand miles of Jackson or me again. Never mention the Westbrook name again. Live your lives. Raise your baby. Be happy. Or not. I don’t care. As long as you’re gone.”
I leaned forward.
“Or,” I said. “We fight. And I will spend every dollar I have, every waking moment of every day, to make sure you and Marcus spend the rest of your natural lives in prison. I will find every person you’ve ever conned. Every mark. Every lie. I will bring them all to court. And I will make sure that when this is over, the name Natalie Carter is synonymous with evil. That no one will ever believe a word you say again. That your child will grow up knowing exactly who his mother really was.”
The room was silent.
Natalie stared at me.
Then she laughed.
It was the same laugh I had heard in the bathroom at the rehearsal dinner.
Cold.
Cruel.
Confident.
“You think you can scare me?” she said. “You think five years in prison is some kind of terrible threat? I’ve been poor, Eleanor. I’ve been hungry. I’ve been the girl no one would look at twice. Prison is three meals a day and a roof over my head. Compared to where I came from, it’s a vacation.”
She stood.
She walked to the window.
“And you want to talk about my child?” she said. “Let’s talk about your child. Let’s talk about Jackson. Do you think he’ll ever be normal again? Do you think he’ll ever trust another woman? Do you think he’ll ever be able to love anyone without wondering if they’re just after the money? I broke him, Eleanor. Long before the wedding. Long before the head-shaving. I broke him into a thousand pieces. And no matter what happens to me, he’ll never be whole again. That’s my real victory. Not the money. That.”
She turned back to me.
Her eyes were shining.
“So take your deal,” she said. “And shove it up your ass. We’re going to war, Eleanor. And you might have the money and the lawyers and the fancy house. But I have something you don’t.”
She smiled.
“I have absolutely nothing to lose.”
I stood.
I walked to the door.
I paused with my hand on the frame.
“You’re wrong about one thing,” I said. “Jackson will heal. He’ll love again. He’ll be whole again. Because he’s a good man. And good men don’t break forever. They just need time to remember who they are.”
I looked at her.
“You,” I said. “You were broken before you ever met us. And no amount of money or revenge is ever going to fix that.”
I walked out.
The guard followed.
As we got into the car, I saw Natalie watching me from the window.
She didn’t look angry.
She looked… excited.
She had been waiting for this.
The fight.
The battle.
May you like
It was what she lived for.
And I had just given her exactly what she wanted.
