Chapter 4 - The Peoria Journey
By nine o'clock that morning, the mansion was entirely quiet again.
I walked up to the third-floor guest suite and knocked softly on the door.
It opened a crack, revealing June. She was dressed in her gray uniform, her hair neatly tied back, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She looked at me with a mixture of fear and confusion, holding her small canvas tote bag tightly against her side.
"Mr. Blackwell," she said quietly. "Am I... am I dismissed?"
"No, June," I said gently. "You are not dismissed. You are going home."
She blinked. "Home?"
"Pack your things," I said, turning down the hallway. "My car is waiting outside. We are going to Peoria."
Forty-five minutes later, my black Maybach was cruising down Interstate 55 South toward Peoria, driven by my chauffeur, Thomas. June sat in the plush leather rear seat beside me, staring out the tinted window at the passing cornfields, her hands tucked neatly into her lap as if she was afraid to touch anything inside the vehicle.
"Drink some juice, June," I said, offering her a bottle from the built-in mini-fridge. "And eat the sandwich."
She hesitated, then took the fresh turkey sandwich wrapped in wax paper. She took small, deliberate bites, savoring every mouthful as if she still couldn't believe the food was real.
"Why are you doing this, Mr. Blackwell?" she asked softly after finishing half the sandwich. "You’re a powerful man. Men like you usually just fire people when trouble happens."
"Men like me spend so much time looking at the grand design that we forget the foundation we're standing on," I answered honestly, looking out at the highway. "I thought I built an empire that protected people, June. Instead, I built a monster that fed on women like you while I slept soundly upstairs."
She looked down at her hands, her thumbs tracing the thread bracelet with the initials L and M.
"Tell me about Lila and Micah," I said.
A tiny, brilliant smile flickered across her pale face—the first real smile I had seen on her since I found her in the pantry.
"Lila is eight," June said, her voice softening with maternal pride. "She loves drawing. She draws pictures of houses with big gardens. She tells me that when she grows up, she’s going to buy me a house where I don't have to clean for anyone else."
My chest tightened. "And Micah?"
"Micah is five. He’s... he’s quiet. He misses me," she murmured, her voice catching in her throat. "Every time I leave Peoria on Sunday night to take the bus back to Chicago, he grips my coat and asks if I’m going to buy his medicine. My mother has severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Her inhalers cost four hundred dollars a month. Out of the two thousand two hundred I was getting, after paying my room rent in South Side, almost all of it went to her pharmacy."
"Four hundred dollars," I repeated, the number sickeningly small compared to the millions Julian had stolen.
"Yes, sir," she whispered. "Sometimes she skips doses so the kids can have fresh milk and fruit."
I leaned forward and tapped the glass divider. "Thomas."
"Yes, Mr. Blackwell?" Thomas replied through the speaker.
"Stop at the regional medical center in Peoria before we go to June’s home. Have my personal physician arrange an immediate delivery of three months' supply of specialized respiratory medications to Mrs. Carter's residence."
June gasped, turning her head toward me, her eyes wide with shock. "Mr. Blackwell... no! You don't have to do that! That costs thousands—"
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"June," I said, looking her dead in the eye. "You are owed over ninety-four thousand dollars in back pay, interest, and stolen wages from my company. Consider the medicine a very small advance on what is rightfully yours."
She covered her face with her split, calloused hands and wept silently as the car sped south down the open highway.
