My mother called at 2am and shouted, “Your brother is in the hospital – send $15,000 now or he will suffer all night”, and for the first time in thirty-two years, I said, “Call your dear daughter”, hung up, went back to sleep, and the call from the police station the next morning finally told me the truth about what my family had been hiding from me, to keep the money, they only asked me to do 1 thing right away…
The phone rang, ripping through the silence of my 40th-floor penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan. In Chicago, 2 a.m. is often the hour of bad news.
I, Michael Vance, 32, a hedge fund manager whose heart has been trained to be indifferent to market fluctuations, reached for the receiver. Next to me, the computer screen was still lit with Asian stock charts.
“Michael! Help! Help my brother!”
My mother, Linda, screamed into the phone, shrill and filled with the dramatic panic she had perfected over the past thirty years.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” I asked, my voice flat, my eyes still glancing at the falling Nikkei.
“Your brother… Nathan… he’s in the Mercy Hospital emergency room. The creditors… they found him. They beat him, broke his ribs, ruptured his spleen. The doctor said he needed surgery right away, but his insurance has expired. They want cash! $15,000! Now, Michael! Transfer the money or your brother will be in pain all night, maybe he will die!”
I sighed, rubbing my temples. How many times had I heard this scenario? Nathan – the eldest son, the “broken hope” of the family, who had been addicted to drugs and gambling since he was 18. For the past ten years, I had been their living ATM. Drug rehab money, bail money, money to pay off gangster debts… I paid it all, in return for scorn and mockery that I was “cold-blooded, only interested in money”.
And Nathan? He was always forgiven. And Jessica, my youngest sister, my “little princess,” who was studying for a PhD in Arts in Paris with my money, was always her pride.
“$15,000 for a rib surgery at 2am?” I asked again. “Are you sure it wasn’t $15,000 for Nathan to pay off his drug dealer debt?”
“You… you dare doubt me?” Linda screamed, sobbing mixed in. “Your brother is spitting blood! Are you even human, Michael? You’re so rich that you’re afraid of your brother’s life?”
Weakness took over me. Not physical fatigue, but the exhaustion of a drained soul. I looked out the window, the snow was falling heavily.
“Mom,” I said, for the first time in thirty-two years, my voice no longer resigned. “I won’t transfer the money.”
“What?”
“I said no. Nathan is 35. If he causes trouble, he’ll take it. And Mom…” I paused, smirking bitterly. “Call your precious daughter. Call Jessica. Tell her to sell the Hermes bags I bought her to save her brother.”
“You… you’re crazy! Your sister is in Paris! Do you want to kill your brother?”
“Goodnight, Mom.”
I hung up. Unplugged the phone.
I lay down on the bed, pulled up the covers. I expected to toss and turn with guilt. But strangely enough, I fell asleep immediately. The best sleep I’d had in a decade. I’d cut the chain. I was free.
8 AM.
I was woken not by the alarm clock, but by the doorbell ringing insistently.
I put on my robe and walked to the door, a cup of black coffee in my hand. I guessed it was my mother. She was definitely coming to smash and curse me.
But no. Standing at the door were two police officers with Chicago Police Department (CPD) badges.
“Mr. Michael Vance?” the older officer, Detective Miller, asked.
“Yes, it’s me. What’s the matter? Is my brother causing a disturbance again?” I took a sip of coffee, mentally preparing to write a bail check.
Detective Miller looked at me strangely. Not contempt, but a little… pity?
“Mr. Vance, we need you to come with us to the 19th Precinct right now. There’s a murder, and we need you to identify some evidence.”
“Murder?” The cup in my hand froze. “Nathan… is he dead?”
“Please come with us. We’ll explain on the way.”
Sitting in the police car, I felt a chill run down my spine. Was my mother’s threat true? Was Nathan dead because I didn’t send him money? Did I kill my brother? As much as I hated being taken advantage of, I never wanted him dead.
When I got to the police station, I wasn’t taken to the morgue. I was taken to an interrogation room. There sat my mother, Linda.
She wasn’t crying as hard as I’d expected. She was sitting huddled, her hands cuffed to the table, her face pale, her eyes staring blankly into space. When she saw me enter, she cringed as if she’d seen a ghost.
“What the hell is going on?” I slammed my hand on the table. “Where’s Nathan? Is he dead?”
Detective Miller walked in, placing a thick file on the table.
“Mr. Vance, calm down,” he said. “Your brother, Nathan Vance, is not dead. He is in the holding cell next door, safe and sound. In fact, he was arrested last night at a blackjack casino.”
“Well?” I was stunned. “But my mother called at 2 a.m. to say he was in the emergency room…”
“That’s a lie,” the detective interrupted. “She needs $15,000, right?”
She had to give it to Nathan. She needed money to get rid of the body.”
I felt the floor beneath me crumble. “A body? Who did my mother kill?”
Detective Miller opened the file and slid a photo toward me.
“Do you recognize this person?”
I looked at the crime scene photo. A woman’s body lay in the bathtub of my parents’ old house, surrounded by drug paraphernalia. Though her face was purple, I recognized her long blonde hair and the small butterfly tattoo on her wrist.
“Jessica?” I whispered, my throat tight. “But… she was in Paris?”
“No, Mr. Vance,” the Detective shook his head. “Jessica never went to Paris.”
TWIST:
Detective Miller began to tell the story, each word like a hammer hammering nail into the coffin of my belief.
“Five years ago, Jessica was expelled from Art School for drug dealing. She returned to Chicago, heavily addicted to heroin. Your mother, Linda, was so proud and obsessed with being the ‘perfect daughter,’ that she kept it a secret.”
He pointed to my mother, who was shaking.
“She kept Jessica locked in the basement, hiding her and supplying her with drugs to keep her quiet. She created the perfect scenario. The Eiffel Tower check-in photos? Photoshop. The emails asking for tuition? She wrote them.”
“And Nathan?” I asked, my mind reeling.
“Nathan was the sacrificial lamb,” the detective continued. “Nathan had actually been clean for four years. He was a construction worker, living an honest life in the suburbs. But your mother threatened to report his dark past to his employer if he didn’t cooperate. She forced Nathan to play the role of a drug addict and a troublemaker so she could ask you for money. Every penny you sent to ‘Nathan the Rehab’ actually went to your mother to buy Jessica high-end drugs and maintain her lavish lifestyle.”
“Last night,” the Detective’s voice dropped, “Jessica overdosed. Linda panicked. She didn’t call 911 because she was afraid of giving away her secret. She called a ‘black doctor’ to come and dispose of the body and clean up the scene. That man demanded $15,000 in cash that night.”
I looked at my mother. The woman who had given birth to me. The woman who had screamed at me last night that I was cold-blooded.
She had used Nathan’s honor as a shield.
She had used my pity as a gold mine.
And she had killed Jessica with her toxic protection.
My words last night: “Call your precious daughter”—ironically, the most devastating prophecy. If I had sent the money, she would have gotten rid of the body, and this deception would have continued forever. Jessica would have died without anyone knowing, and I would have continued to resent Nathan.
“Mr. Vance,” Detective Miller pulled me back to reality. “To preserve her assets and the evidence against her, we only ask you to do one thing immediately.”
“What?”
“Confirm the financial transactions. We need you to sign a complaint of fraud and appropriation of property. Without your application, her lawyer could have circumvented the law by saying that this was a family dispute and that the money was given voluntarily by you.”
I picked up the pen. My mother raised her head to look at me. Her eyes were no longer arrogant, only pitiful pleading.
“Michael… I did everything for the honor of the family… Jessica is my angel… Don’t do this…”
I remembered the ten years of Nathan’s injustice. I remembered the money I had worked so hard for turned into poison that killed my sister.
I looked straight into her eyes.
“You’re right,” I said coldly. “Honor is the most important.”
I signed the complaint. The strokes were strong and decisive.
“And my honor does not allow me to nurture demons.”
I stood up and walked out of the interrogation room. In the hallway, I saw Nathan sitting on the bench, his hands cuffed but his face relieved. He looked at me, his eyes brimming with tears. We no words, just a nod to each other. A nod that erased ten years of misunderstanding and resentment.
I walked out of the police station, took a deep breath of the cold Chicago air. The sky was gray, but I felt clear in my heart.
I had lost an illusory sister, lost a toxic mother. But I had found a real brother. And most importantly, I had found myself again.
$15,000. That was a small price to pay for the truth.
