Chapter 4 - Bernice’s Desperate Move
While Scott’s corporate empire was being dismantled at the Vance Tower, his mother Bernice was attempting a desperate, arrogant maneuver of her own.
Having been evicted from my mansion forty-eight hours prior, Bernice had checked herself into the presidential suite of the Grand Regent Hotel downtown, using a secondary platinum credit card she believed was still active. She invited four of her high-society socialite friends over for an emergency "luncheon" to spread rumors that I had suffered a mental breakdown and was holding Scott’s assets hostage.
I learned about this through my bank alert system at 1:00 PM.
A notification popped up on my tablet: AUTHORIZATION DECLINED — $4,200.00 AT THE GRAND REGENT HOTEL RESTAURANT.
Ten minutes later, my assistant forwarded a frantic video recording taken by one of the hotel waiters.
Inside the opulent dining room of the Grand Regent, Bernice was standing near a linen-covered table, surrounded by four wealthy women wearing designer hats and pearl necklaces. The hotel manager, a sharp man in a black tuxedo, stood before her holding a leather bill folder.
"What do you mean declined?!" Bernice’s shrill voice echoed through the high-ceilinged dining room in the video. "Try it again! My son is Scott Vance! We own the Vance Logistics Corporation! My daughter-in-law probably messed up the bank transfer!"
"Mrs. Vance," the hotel manager said politely but firmly. "The card issuer has placed a hard freeze on the account, indicating the card was reported stolen by the primary account holder, Mrs. Caroline Sterling."
"Stolen?!" Bernice gasped, her face flushing bright red as her socialite friends began exchanging horrified, gossipy looks behind their menus. "That ungrateful little hillbilly! She’s doing this to humiliate me! I demand you call the police right now and have her arrested for elder financial abuse!"
"We don't need to call the police, Bernice," I said, stepping into the frame of the video in real life as I walked into the Grand Regent's dining room.
The entire dining room went quiet.
Bernice spun around, her eyes widening in shock as she saw me walking toward her table, flanked by Harrison Vance and two uniformed officers from the city police department.
"Caroline!" Bernice shrieked, trying to regain her regal posture. "You... you ungrateful brat! How dare you report my card as stolen! I have been using this card for two years with my son's permission!"
"You had permission to use a card linked to my personal account, Bernice," I said, stopping three feet from her table. "Scott never owned that account. He didn't have the legal authority to issue you a card in the first place."
"That's a lie!" Bernice yelled, turning to her friends. "Ladies, don't listen to her! She’s a poor country girl from Oak Ridge! She’s trying to steal my son's fortune!"
Harrison Vance stepped forward, holding out a certified bank ledger and a police report.
"Mrs. Bernice Vance," Harrison announced in a voice that carried across the entire restaurant. "Over the past twenty-four months, you have charged over three hundred and forty thousand dollars to an account belonging exclusively to Caroline Sterling. Since you were never a legal signatory, those transactions constitute unauthorized credit card fraud."
The four socialites at the table gasped, quickly grabbing their designer handbags and pulling back their chairs.
"Bernice... is this true?" one of her friends whispered, horrified. "Is the card not yours?"
"Of course it's mine! My son gave it to me!" Bernice whimpered, her arrogant facade finally crumbling into raw, pathetic panic.
"The officers behind me are here to execute a felony arrest warrant for grand larceny and credit card fraud," Harrison added coldly. "Unless you can settle your four-thousand-dollar hotel bill right now in cash."
Bernice looked down at her open purse. Her hands trembled violently as she pulled out three crumpled twenty-dollar bills and a handful of cosmetic tubes.
"Caroline... please," Bernice whispered, looking at me with wide, terrified eyes—the same woman who three days ago had thrown my father's chicken into the mud and called it garbage fit for animals. "Don't do this to me in front of my friends... I'm Scott's mother! I'm an older woman!"
I looked at her, my expression completely unreadable.
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"You told me on Sunday that we don't eat leftovers in your house, Bernice," I said softly. "Well... in my house, we don't pay for thieves."
I turned my back and walked out of the Grand Regent as the two police officers stepped forward and placed heavy steel handcuffs around Bernice’s wrists.
