Retaliation
Chapter 10 - Retaliation
Victor Pryce did not take kindly to Eleanor's cooperation with authorities, a fact that became clear four days after Lily's surgery, while she was still recovering in the specialist hospital's pediatric ward, when Eleanor's car was found with all four tires slashed in her own driveway.
No note. No direct threat. Just the specific, unmistakable message of someone letting you know they were aware of your cooperation and displeased by it.
Nathan called the detective handling the investigation immediately, and within a day, a patrol car had been assigned to check Eleanor's street periodically, a precaution the detective assured them was standard given the circumstances of an active investigation into organized lending.
"I did this to myself," Eleanor said, when Nathan told her about the increased patrols. "I understand that. I just didn't expect the consequences to extend toward actual danger this quickly."
"You should have expected it the moment you decided to borrow from someone who operates entirely outside legal protections," Claire said, not cruelly, but with the specific bluntness she'd adopted since the study, unwilling anymore to soften hard truths for anyone's comfort.
"I know," Eleanor said. "I'm not arguing that point. I'm just, processing how fast all of this became bigger than a family secret."
The investigation into Victor Pryce accelerated with Eleanor's cooperation, detectives finding her documentation matched patterns from three other victims who'd been too frightened to come forward on their own, Eleanor's willingness to testify formally becoming, unexpectedly, one of the case's strongest pieces of evidence.
"You might actually be helping shut down something that's hurt a lot of families, not just ours," Nathan told his mother, the week after the tires were slashed, watching her process that possibility with visible surprise.
"I never thought about it that way," Eleanor admitted. "I've spent so long thinking about my own shame in this, I didn't consider that coming forward might actually help someone else."
"That doesn't erase what you did to us," Claire said. "But it's not nothing, either. I think you're allowed to hold both of those things as true at the same time."
Lily, recovering steadily in the pediatric ward, remained blessedly unaware of any of it, her small, mended heart beating stronger each day, her only concerns limited to hospital jello flavors and when she'd be allowed to go home to her own bed.
Claire sat with her daughter during a quiet afternoon, watching cartoons on the small hospital television, feeling for the first time in weeks a genuine, uncomplicated relief settle into her chest.
May you like
*She's going to be okay,* Claire thought. *Whatever else this family still has to work through, she's going to be okay.*
That, more than any resolution with Eleanor or Victor Pryce or even Nathan, felt like the only outcome that had ever truly mattered.
