Chapter 9 - THE CLEANSING
On Thursday morning, a commercial biohazard and restoration crew arrived at my home.
I stood in the center of the vaulted living room, watching four workers in white Tyvek suits tear the stained leather couch to pieces and haul it directly into a twenty-yard dumpster parked in my driveway.
“Everything goes,” I told the foreman. “The rugs, the dining chairs, the barstools. Strip the guest suite completely down to the drywall. Repaint the entire first floor. I don’t want a single molecule of their presence left in this house.”
By noon, the dumpster was half-full.
Neighbors walked past on the sidewalk, whispering to each other. Some of them had attended Ross’s party, thinking it was my event. When the rumors of what had actually happened to Calvin and Molly began circulating through the neighborhood Facebook group, the tone shifted from curiosity to absolute horror.
A silver Mercedes pulled up to the curb.
Mrs. Kensington, the neighborhood association president who had previously sent me three angry emails complaining about Ross’s loud music, stepped out holding a massive casserole dish.
“Dr. Vance,” she said, her voice trembling with genuine remorse as she walked up the driveway. “We... we had no idea. We thought you were hosting those terrible people. We saw the police cruisers on New Year’s morning, but the neighborhood gossip said it was just a noise complaint. When Detective Miller interviewed us yesterday about the security cameras... my God, Lauren.”
I looked at the woman. She had lived three doors down for eight years.
“My brother is a monster,” I said simply. “And my mother helped him.”
Mrs. Kensington pressed the hot casserole into my hands. “If you need anything—anything at all—the whole block is behind you. We signed a petition this morning to ban Ross Vance and your mother from ever entering the subdivision gates again, in case they make bail.”
“They won't make bail,” I said.
By five o’clock that evening, the house smelled of fresh pine, clean paint, and citrus bleach. The broken glass door leading to the balcony had been replaced with hurricane-grade reinforced tempered glass with an electronic keypad lock that only Calvin, Molly, and I knew the code to.
The heavy steel security bar Ross had used to trap my children was currently sitting in the police evidence locker, tagged with his bloody fingerprints.
I walked out onto the balcony.
The sun was setting, casting a warm golden glow over the snow-covered lawn. The temperature had risen to forty degrees; the ice had finally melted from the concrete.
I stood in the exact spot where Calvin had huddled over his little sister.
I knelt down and touched the bare concrete. It was cold, but no longer lethal.
“Never again,” I whispered to the empty air. “I swear to God, never again.”
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Victoria Vance, my father’s estranged younger sister. She was a top-tier estate and corporate litigation attorney who lived in Boston. We hadn't spoken in three years because Evelyn had told the entire family that Victoria was "crazy and vindictive."
The text read:
May you like
*“Lauren, I just heard what that bastard and Evelyn did. I’m boarding a flight to Chicago right now. Do not sign a single paper with their public defender. I am going to make sure your mother and brother spend the rest of their natural lives in a cage.”*
***
