Chapter 5 - The House of Cards
“Robert, do something!” Patricia screamed, scrambling to her feet and grabbing her husband’s arm. “Tell her she can’t do this! This is our home! Bradley goes to school here! We host the charity galas here! You can’t let her throw us into the street over an accounting dispute!”
Robert pulled his arm out of her grip with a sudden, violent yank. The passive, beaten-down man seemed to snap.
“Shut up, Patricia!” Robert roared, his face turning an alarming shade of crimson. “You told me it was handled! You told me Mom authorized that disbursement as an advance on our inheritance! You swore to me on our children’s lives that Sarah had received a separate settlement from Evan’s trucking company!”
“A settlement?” I echoed, my head spinning. “Evan was hit by an uninsured driver running a red light. There was no settlement. The driver died at the scene with twelve dollars in his checking account. The trucking company didn't owe us a dime. Who told you there was a settlement?”
Robert stared at me, the color draining from his face until he looked like a walking corpse. “Patricia told me. She said… she said she mediated with the freight carrier’s corporate insurers. She said they paid out $300,000 directly to you, and that you told her you didn't need Margaret’s help anymore.”
Margaret turned to Clara. “Clara. Check the probate filings for Evan Miller.”
Clara’s fingers flew across her keyboard. The room was deathly quiet except for the clacking of keys and the distant sound of the wind rattling the heavy double-paned windows.
“There were no wrongful death proceeds filed,” Clara stated after forty seconds. “However… there is an unclaimed casualty indemnity record with State Farm. The policy was in Evan Miller’s name. A life insurance benefit of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Evan… Evan had a life policy through his union?”
“Yes,” Clara said, looking up from her screen, her eyes wide with shock. “The claim was initiated in January of last year. But it was flagged and placed into administrative suspension.”
“Why?” Margaret demanded.
“Because,” Clara said, reading the screen, “a competing claim was filed by SV Management LLC, alleging that the decedent had pledged the life insurance proceeds as collateral for an outstanding personal loan.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet. I had to reach out and brace myself against the arm of the sofa to keep from falling.
Not only had Patricia stolen the $180,000 Margaret had sent to save me, but she had also actively blocked my husband’s $250,000 life insurance policy from paying out to me and Lily, trying to divert that money into her fraudulent LLC as well.
“You monster,” I whispered.
Patricia backed away until she hit the wall beneath a framed oil painting of the Rocky Mountains. She looked like a trapped animal, her eyes wide and wild.
“We needed it!” Patricia screamed, her voice tearing with hysterical rage. “Do you know how much Robert’s firm lost? Two million dollars! Two million! We were days away from bankruptcy! The banks were coming for the cars, the house, everything! And you—you were just a twenty-four-year-old girl with a high school diploma and a dead truck-driver husband! What were you going to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars? You would have squandered it!”
“Patricia!” Robert lunged forward, grabbing Patricia by the shoulders and shaking her violently. “Are you insane? Are you completely out of your mind? You committed federal wire fraud! You tried to steal a dead man’s life insurance!”
“Get your hands off her, Robert,” Margaret’s voice sliced through the chaos like a guillotine.
Robert instantly let go, stepping back, breathing heavily.
Margaret walked over to Richard. “Richard. Call the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department.”
“No!” Patricia shrieked, falling to her knees again, crawling toward Margaret. “No, Margaret, please! Not the police! Think of Bradley! Think of Emily! Emily is innocent! She’s at her friend’s house for Thanksgiving—she doesn't know anything about this! Please don't ruin our family!”
“You ruined this family the moment you let a baby starve so you could drive a Mercedes,” Margaret said without a shred of pity. “Richard, make the call.”
Richard pulled his cell phone from his breast pocket and began dialing.
“Wait,” I said.
Everyone turned to look at me. Patricia looked up from the floor with a sudden spark of desperate hope in her tear-filled eyes.
“Sarah… Sarah, please,” Patricia begged, clasping her hands together. “You’re family. Blood is blood. Evan would never want to see his family destroyed like this…”
I walked slowly over to where Patricia was kneeling. Lily was asleep again, her tiny, pale face resting peacefully against my chest, completely unaware of the venom poisoning the air around her.
I looked down at the woman who had worn diamonds while I scavenged for coins in the cushions of a broken couch.
“Evan worked seventy hours a week so I could stay home with our daughter,” I said, every word dripping with cold, unyielding rage. “When he was dying in that hospital bed, his last words to me weren't about pain. They were: *‘Take care of our little girl.’* He trusted that our family would protect us.”
I looked over at Richard.
May you like
“Call the police, Richard,” I said clearly. “And tell them to bring two squad cars.”
***
