Brenda Chiatovich:
–
I created the concept of The Homewrecker series. A girl who has lived such a privileged life she does not even realize she is privileged. Now she must adjust to a world she does not understand and she has to face herself in the process.
Tiffany Chiatovich Melendez:
–
Hello. I am Brenda’s daughter. When my grand pop and my mom were deciding on a name for LC’s arch nemesis they chose one of my nicknames, Peaches.
–
In the second novel I appear again, this time as Sara, another of my nicknames.
–
Sara is a fun character based loosely on my personality. Please, it is NOT biographical in any way. This is, after all, a work of fiction.
Chapter 2
Minor Crimes
Peaches felt proud of herself. She was sure she had planned the perfect little escapade. A minor job as it were. After all if she were to commit to a life of villainy it would not hurt to get in some training doing lessor, if equally important, activities.
Today’s venture would be very important to her future. She studied her surroundings.
The lawn in the back of the house was simple. A wide expanse of golf trimmed grass with umbrella shaded tables. It was designed to give an aura of elegant leisure. It was also deserted, which is what she expected. It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week. Not a time when guests would be gathered. The gardener, except for a weekly mowing, spent the bulk of his time in the front yard, caring for the lavish and impressive first impression a guest would have of the manor.
So far so good.
The hedge she snuck through was a Portuguese Laurel. Pretty and effective, except for one spot Peaches had been using to sneak through since she was a little girl.
She had a story cooked up in case she were caught. She would say she wanted Uncle Norton’s advice on selecting an attorney for a fraternity joke that had gone horribly wrong. Of course Uncle Norton wasn’t a real uncle, not that it would have made any difference to her plans. What she intended to do today was such a minor crime compared to what she had been doing. Compared to what she was going to do. Nor did she need his opinion on what lawyer to select. She knew what lawyer he would select and she already had an appointment with him this afternoon. It would work. If she got caught she would listen too, and take, Uncle Norton’s advice.
Keep it simple and sexy. Sexy was important.
Peaches did not like working under a time schedule, but right now there were a lot of things needed to be done and not much time to do them. Worse she had no clue how much time was left to her. She either was, or soon would be, wanted for murder. She did not know if the police were after her officially or not. Nothing had come across the car radio. On the other hand she had not gone home. No telling what news awaited her there.
And all because of that damned interfering nanny, LC. Someday, when the time was right, Peaches was going to kill that. Nice and slow and painful. Peaches would watch and enjoy every minute of it too. Maybe she would even make a video of it so she could watch it over and over again. How any one person could wreck too much havoc in Peaches life was amazing. And a nobody at that. A nanny of all things. A woman whose step-father worked for people like Peaches mother. A man who worked so far down the ladder that if he had worked for her she wouldn’t even know his name.
But enough of that. She brought her mind back to the business at hand.
One thing was for certain. If a cop knew who she was he would take her in for questioning. An event she did not want to have happen until specific things were in place.
Like checking out Uncle Norton’s wall safe.
If you think you might need to run from your old life, you better figure out a way to get a lot of money into your new life. She had evidence she needed to get rid of. Things that would link her to crimes the cops hadn’t suspected yet. She should have gotten rid of it immediately. First. But no time would be better than right now to raid Uncle Norton’s safe.
When she was a little girl she would never have guessed that her happy little trips to the wonderful Uncle Norton manor were cleverly disguised “business” trips of an unsavory kind. Nor would she have believed that her presence was part of the cover. Little girls do not believe mommy and daddy can be bad or evil. Until she saw the evidence Peter Johnson had obtained against both her mother and father she would not have believed it today. Her mother was an embezzler and both her mother and father had been selling company secrets to a broker. That broker was Uncle Norton.
And who knew how many brothers and sisters she might have from her father the serial fiance who was perpetually engaged to one woman after another. Then just before the wedding date he would disappear never to be seen again.
The other “Uncle” Uncle Pete had known everything about both her parents and had used the information to blackmail her father. Peaches might have let that go except for one small item on the agenda. Her five hundred thousand dollar college fund. The bastard wanted it. Worse, her parents were going to give it too him. Now he could rot in hell. And it was not in her plans to rot along with him.
She somehow knew whenever her mother and father went to Uncle Norton’s at some time during every visit he would venture back into a room and go to his safe. When he returned he always had presents for “the wonderful couple.” He gave her presents too. But they never came from the safe. They were never envelopes full of hot cash.
It was just child’s play that she hid and watched him. It was just a wonderful trick of her mind that she could still remember the combination to this day. But she could remember anything if she wanted too. If only the combination were the same. If he changed it over the years she was out of luck. But why should he change it? No one knew where he went to get the cash. No one knew where the safe was hidden. He always went down the hall and never into the same room twice.
The house itself was huge, and it was an elaborate maze. Designed in such a way Uncle Norton could start out anywhere in the house and quickly and easily wind up in the cash room without anyone knowing where he had gone or how he had gotten there.
Only Peaches knew. And only because she had been a sweet little girl no one noticed. She liked to explore and she liked to hide. At five it was just a fun game. As a teenaged murderer it could still be a lot of fun.
She walked right through the back of the house, past the kitchen where she could hear cleaning noises, and to the room where the safe was concealed. She brought some gloves. It didn’t matter if her fingerprints were all over the house. She could explain that. She was a regular visitor. What she could not explain would be her fingerprints inside the safe. Quickly she slipped them on. She slid the picture aside, opened the safe, looked inside. There were envelopes, of the kind he had given her mother and father, and a nondescript box. The envelopes were empty. She looked inside the box and almost passed out.
Her whole body shook as she emptied the box. Her fingers shook as she re-closed the safe. Her heart pounding, she almost ran out of the house.
© 2016, All Rights Reserved
The Homewrecker Series (tm) 
Leave a Reply