Chapter 4 - The Midnight Audit
The grandfather clock in the study struck midnight with twelve heavy, brassy chimes that vibrated through the floorboards.
Downstairs, the house was dark save for the small banker’s lamp glowing on Anthony’s old rolltop desk. Gabriella sat in the leather swivel chair, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, a fresh cup of black coffee steaming beside a stack of printouts Marcus had retrieved from his car’s portable printer.
I sat on the green velvet sofa, wrapped in Anthony’s old wool cardigan, watching the rain beat against the leaded glass windows.
Linda had signed the agreement. She had signed it with trembling hands, weeping furious, silent tears of humiliation at the dining table while Edward stood behind her like a ghost. Then she had fled upstairs, dragging Dylan and Sarah into the guest suite, slamming the door so hard the framed photographs of Anthony’s fishing trips rattled on the hallway wall.
Edward had tried to speak to me before going upstairs. He had knelt beside my chair, reaching for my hand, his face slick with tears. *“Mom, please. Let me explain. You don't know what my life has been like. You don't know what she does to me.”*
I had simply pulled my hand away, folded it into my lap, and said, *“Go to bed, Edward. We will talk when the sun comes up.”*
Now, Gabriella flipped a page in her folder, her pen making a sharp scratching noise on the paper.
“It’s worse than you thought, Evelyn,” Gabe said without looking up.
“Tell me,” I replied, my voice steady despite the cold ache in the center of my chest. “I didn't call you here to be shielded, Gabe. Anthony and I always looked the truth in the eye.”
Gabriella set down her pen, took off her glasses, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Marcus ran an emergency asset and credit check on both of them through our firm’s private investigative network. Edward didn't lose his job because of corporate downsizing.”
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second. “Why was he fired?”
“He was terminated for cause from Continental Logistics three weeks ago,” Gabriella said, her voice heavy with regret. “He was caught attempting to manipulate the company’s payroll advance system. He tried to draw forty-five thousand dollars against future commissions that didn't exist. The managing director was an old fraternity brother of Edward’s, which is the only reason they didn't file criminal embezzlement charges. They gave him twenty-four hours to resign quietly.”
A sharp pain lanced through my temple. “Forty-five thousand dollars? For what? Edward made a hundred and forty thousand a year! What could he possibly have needed forty-five thousand dollars for so desperately that he would destroy his entire career?”
“For her,” Gabriella said bluntly, pointing her pen toward the ceiling. “Or rather, for the fantasy world she built on the internet.”
She slid a thick folder across the coffee table toward me.
I opened it. Inside were dozens of printed screenshots from social media accounts I had never seen. An Instagram handle named *@LindaRossLiving*.
There were photos of Linda posing in private cabanas in Cabo San Lucas. Photos of designer handbags resting on the passenger seats of leased luxury sports cars. Photos of lavish, catered dinner parties in their Naperville townhouse, featuring floral arrangements that must have cost thousands of dollars each.
Beneath each photograph were captions full of manufactured corporate jargon: *“Building generational wealth,” “Living by design, not by default,” “CEO mindset in our custom home.”*
“She runs a so-called lifestyle consulting business,” Gabriella explained, her lip curling in disgust. “It has generated exactly zero dollars in revenue over three years. But to maintain the illusion of success for her forty thousand followers, she was burning through cash at an astronomical rate. When Edward’s salary couldn't keep up, she opened twelve separate credit cards in Edward’s name using his Social Security number. When those maxed out, she took out a second mortgage on the Naperville townhouse through an online subprime lender.”
I turned the page. My hands began to shake as I saw the numbers.
Total unsecured credit card debt: $184,000.
Townhouse default balance: $92,000.
Automobile lease penalties: $14,000.
“They didn't just lose their home, Evelyn,” Gabriella whispered. “They were driven out by process servers. The bank foreclosed two weeks ago. The sheriff showed up on Monday morning and changed the locks. That U-Haul parked in your driveway right now? It doesn't contain their furniture. Their furniture was seized and auctioned by the private lender. That truck contains clothes, shoes, makeup, and thirty boxes of unsold promotional merchandise for her fake business.”
I let the folder drop back onto the table. The heavy thump sounded like dirt falling onto a coffin lid.
“And the plan,” I said, the bitter realization coating my tongue like ash, “was to come here.”
“The plan,” Gabriella confirmed, “was hatched entirely by Linda, though Edward was too cowardly to stop it. She found an appraiser two months ago while Edward was still employed. She had your neighborhood pulled up on real estate databases. Historic brick Georgian on a double lot in Ravenswood Manor? With modern renovations, this house would sell for 1.4 million dollars tomorrow.”
“She thought she could force me out,” I said, staring at the rain streaming down the glass.
“She thought you were a lonely, passive, grieving old woman who would crumble under pressure,” Gabriella said softly. “She told Edward that if they moved in, established residency, and made life sufficiently uncomfortable for you, you would agree to transfer the deed to Edward in exchange for them taking care of you in an in-law suite. Then, once the deed was in Edward’s name, she planned to file for an emergency equity loan to pay off her creditors, stick you in a senior living facility in Schaumburg, and sell the house to a developer.”
A light creak sounded on the stairs outside the study door.
Gabriella and I both stopped talking.
The door, which had been cracked open two inches, moved slightly. Through the gap, I saw a small face illuminated by the hallway nightlight.
It wasn't Linda. And it wasn't Edward.
It was Dylan.
The twelve-year-old boy stood on the bottom step in his oversized flannel pajamas, clutching a worn copy of *The Lightning Thief* to his chest. His eyes were wide, red-rimmed, and entirely haunted.
“Grandma?” he whispered into the dark room.
I stood up immediately, crossing the hardwood floor and pulling the door open. I knelt down so I was eye-level with my grandson. “Dylan, sweetheart. What are you doing out of bed? It’s past midnight.”
Dylan looked past me at the legal folders spread across Anthony’s desk, then looked down at his bare feet. A single, silent tear carved a pale path through the dust on his cheek.
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“Mom is upstairs packing her nice clothes into Dad’s car,” Dylan whispered, his small voice cracking with a terror that broke my heart into a thousand pieces. “She told Dad that if he doesn't steal your house keys and the papers from that desk tonight, she’s taking Sarah and leaving for the airport before the sun comes up.”
***
