Chapter 10 - The Sheriff and the County Deed
The silence that fell over the house after the door clicked shut was deafening.
Through the front window, I watched as the tow truck hooked up the flatbed that had delivered the dumpster. The deputies stood by Brooke’s luxury SUV while she frantically shoved Winston’s heated stroller into the back seat, sobbing into her phone as she sped away, her tires spinning in the slush before catching traction and disappearing down Elmwood Terrace.
Frank Vance closed his briefcase with two crisp clicks.
"The lis pendens is recorded, Hayes. Vanguard Heritage has already pulled their demo crew. Garrett Lowe may be an aggressive vulture, but he’s smart enough not to face criminal contempt of court. He’ll go after Brooke and Greg for the sixty-five thousand, plus their legal fees. That’s their problem now, not yours."
"Thank you, Frank," I said, shaking his hand.
"Get a locksmith over here today," Frank advised, looking toward the living room where Mom sat motionless. "Change every deadbolt, install a security camera on the driveway, and make sure Evelyn understands that Brooke is legally barred from setting foot on this parcel. If she shows up, you don't argue—you dial nine-one-one."
Frank walked out, leaving me alone with my mother.
The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked steadily: *tock, tock, tock.*
I walked into the living room and knelt beside Mom's chair. She was staring blankly at the empty hearth, her hands folded in her lap, looking utterly drained of life.
"Mom," I said softly.
She didn't look at me. "She's my daughter, Hayes. What kind of mother raises a child who could do something like that?"
"A mother who loved her too much and forgave her too often," I replied. "Brooke made her own choices, Mom. You didn't force her to steal your identity. You didn't force her husband to defraud his suppliers. That was their greed, not your failure."
Evelyn slowly turned her head, looking at me with eyes that seemed decades older than they had yesterday. "She said... she said your father hid something under the floorboards."
A cold premonition, sharp and sudden, settled in the base of my neck.
"Brooke was just lashing out, Mom. She was trying to hurt us."
"No," Evelyn whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the radiators. "She wasn't."
I froze. "What do you mean?"
"Your father... the last month before the cancer took him," Evelyn said, staring at the floor. "He was in the master bedroom. He couldn't walk down the stairs anymore. Two days before he went into the hospice wing, he had a carpenter come out—a man from two towns over, someone neither of us knew. He had him pull up the subfloor beneath the cedar armoire in the corner."
My heart began to beat against my ribs with a heavy, uneven thud. "What did he put in there, Mom?"
May you like
"I don't know," she wept softly. "He told me that if the house was ever threatened... if the family ever tore itself apart... the answer was under the floor. He made me swear on the family Bible that I would never open it unless both of you were at war. He told me... he told me it would either save this family or destroy it forever."
***
