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“As you know, I put out some leads to try and get information about the prosecutor that has decided to press charges on Roxanne. Since I’d never heard of her before I wasn’t sure I would be able to get any useful information, but I think I’ve actually solved the mystery of why she’s so eager to send your future sister-in-law to jail.”
Interest piqued, I sit up straighter. “Oh? Already?”
“Yeah. It’s actually way more simple than I would have guessed,” Dan pauses, maybe for dramatic effect. “Do you happen to know who she went to law school with?”
“No. I have no idea who she is, even.”
“Well, our favorite prosecutor was a classmate of none other than Julia Van Dieren,” he says smugly, dropping the bomb so casually that it takes my mind a second to make sense of what he’s telling me.
“Mom?” I whisper, my heart sinking. “Oh, no. I really thought she wasn’t involved in all of this on anything more than the surface level.”
“Yep, I knew she was doing a favor to your family,” Dan says. “I’m not positive that your mom requested this of her, though. Maybe your father did, telling the prosecutor that the request was coming from Julia. Or maybe one of them knows something about the prosecutor that could get her in trouble. It strikes me odd that she would do something as huge as prosecute Roxanne just as a favor, but I have no idea how close she and your mother were, so there’s no way to know for sure what her motives are.”
I swallow hard, pulling my water bottle out of my backpack and taking a sip to ease the dryness that is suddenly in my mouth. “Wow. I can’t believe this!” I laugh, but it verges on hysterical. “It seems like every single day I’m finding something out about one of my family members that I wish I had never learned.”
Dan sounds sympathetic, but firm. “I know it must be hard, but we’ve got to see this through. Look, El, you need to convince your mom to talk to her and make her drop the charges.”
“That's impossible,” I respond, my voice filled with despair. “I'm already on such thin ice with Dad, that if he finds out I did that, he's gonna get me fired. All the progress we’ve made fixing our relationship will go out the window, and with it, any sway I have over him when it comes to forgiving Andries and firing Karl. I can’t do it all, Dan. It’s too much.”
“You have to tell your mom the truth," Dan urges, his voice filled with urgency. “Tell her it's her husband and one of his minions that are behind the Bar Rouge scandal. If my suspicions are correct––and she wasn’t the one to contact the prosecutor––then I don’t see why she would have to tell your father anything. The prosecutor’s name is all over the papers too, so it’d be easy to just assume Julia saw it herself and took action all on her own.”
“Maybe she already knows and doesn't care,” I say, my voice filled with despair. “Maybe she’s just as bad as Dad, just better at hiding it from me.”
“It's worth trying,” Dan insists, his voice filled with conviction. “You told me in Capri that your mom is close to going to the wedding and breaking ranks with Sebastian. This might be the final straw to her putting her foot down and make him take Andries back into the family fold whether he likes it or not.”
Holding the phone against my ear with my shoulder, I lower my head into my hands. “You’re not going to let me get out of this, are you?”
“Don’t you want this to be over, El?” Dan asks, sounding tired out of nowhere. I feel similarly exhausted. “If we just sit around and do nothing it’s going to last so much longer.”
“I know you’re right, I just hate the idea of taking on more responsibilities… what choice do I have?” Sighing, I lean back again, letting my shoulders fall with defeat. “Fine. I’ll talk to her, but I think I need to do it in person, so give me a few days.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” he says softly. “I know it’s tough, but you’re one of the most capable people I know. I believe in you.” My stomach somersaults from his sweet words.
I wish I felt the same way about myself,I think, telling Dan bye and hanging up.
What he’s just told me is totally unexpected, and changes the course of how I need to handle both my father and my mother until I know for sure how connected they both are with the prosecutor. The thought of confronting Mom and finding out that she’s somehow more involved than I imagined, or having her reject the idea of coming to the wedding once and for all, makes my stomach churn. I wish I didn’t have to do it by myself, but Dan is busy helping Andries, and this is my part to play in the machine of defeating this scandal.
I wrack my brain to try and come up with an ally to help me break my mother down and make her sympathetic to our plight. Hannah is the first person to come to mind––especially if I bribe her with the tickets to the equestrian show with Johan––but there is some underlying tension between her and Mom that may actually be detrimental to what I’m trying to accomplish.
Tatianna is another option, but it would be cruel to try and drag her into the process of getting my mother to accept Andries’ marriage, knowing that Tati still holds a candle for my brother. Andries wouldn’t look towards anyone but Roxie even if his life depended on it, but that doesn’t mean I’d feel okay shoving his upcoming wedding in Tati’s face, either.
I circle back to the thought of buttering Hannah up with the tickets from Johan when I run out of options, but then something strikes me. At first, the idea seems strange and unlikely to work, but the more I consider it, the more it makes sense.
I’ll ask Johan to help me. My mother and father both hold him in high esteem, which means they’ll listen to him––maybe even more than me. I think it’s in all parents' nature to tune out their children's opinions at times, but Mom won’t do that with Johan. Plus, I already told her that I invited him over for dinner, so she won’t be suspicious about it. She’ll have no idea that it will be a low key ambush.
So, for the first time since arriving back in Amsterdam, I call Johan. Just making the call causes guilt to settle over me, and I wonder if I should have disclosed my plan to Dan before enacting it, just so he wouldn’t have reason to be suspicious. But I think he’s still guarded enough over finding the envelope that he’d shoot down the idea immediately, and I know in my heart that this has a better chance of working than if I just approach my mom to talk about this all on my own.
He answers quickly and seems surprised to hear from me. “Elise, what a surprise,” he says, his deep, accented voice making me smile.
“Hopefully not a bad one?”
“Never,” he chuckles. “To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing from you again so soon?”
“I know we talked about you visiting the family estate, and I was just wondering when you plan on returning to the Netherlands next?” I try to keep my tone light so he doesn’t suspect that I’m using him for my own means.
“I'm thinking of flying back just a few days before the wedding,” he replies.
“Well, what about coming sooner? Like… this weekend, maybe?”
