Chapter 5 - The Exposed Underbelly
The city inspector's office smelled of stale coffee and ammonia.
I sat in my wheelchair across from Chief Inspector Harold Vance—no relation to my lawyer—a burly man with a thick mustache who looked like he had been reviewing blueprints since the Carter administration.
"Ms. Sinclair," Inspector Vance said, adjusting a pair of reading glasses. "The report submitted to our online portal was very detailed. It included laboratory analysis results showing high concentrations of Stachybotrys chartarum—black mold—in the drywall of your lower-level rehabilitation bay."
"The report is a forgery, Inspector," I said, sliding a thick blue binder across his desk. "My lawyer hired an independent environmental testing firm, Apex Environmental, to run certified air and material samples forty-eight hours ago. Here are their certified results."
Vance pulled the binder toward him, flipping through the pages. As he read, his brow furrowed.
"Apex found zero trace of toxic mold or asbestos," I continued. "The samples attached to the anonymous report submitted to your office were stolen from a demolition site in South Columbus. The IP address used to submit that report was traced by state police to a prepaid burner phone purchased at a Walmart in Newark, Ohio."
"By whom?"
"By my brother, Derek Sinclair," I said, handing him a photo printed from Walmart security footage provided by Detective Reynolds. "Who is currently the subject of a multi-agency arrest warrant for felonious assault, bank fraud, and extortion."
Vance stared at the security footage showing Derek standing at a checkout counter, purchasing the exact model of burner phone used to file the fake environmental complaint.
He closed the file with a heavy thud. "The Stop-Work order is lifted immediately, Ms. Sinclair. And I’m forwarding this report directly to the county prosecutor’s office for filing false official reports."
"Thank you, Inspector."
"Ms. Sinclair?" Vance called out as I turned my wheelchair toward the door. "I’ve been doing this job thirty years. I’ve seen business partners try to destroy each other. I’ve seen bitter ex-spouses wreck properties. But I’ve never seen a brother do something like this to his own sister."
"He didn't see me as his sister," I replied quietly. "He saw me as an ATM that finally refused to dispense cash."
When I arrived back at my apartment, a black sedan was parked in the driveway. Marcus Vance was leaning against the hood, holding an iPad.
"We hit pay dirt, Ava," Marcus said, opening the passenger door to help me transfer from my wheelchair into his car. "The federal grand jury just returned an indictment against Derek and your mother."
"My mother too?" I asked, feeling a sharp, cold knot form in my chest despite everything she had done.
"Gloria signed three separate wire transfer authorizations using forged corporate resolutions," Marcus explained, taking his seat behind the wheel. "She didn't just move the money to pay Derek’s bail—she wired fifteen thousand dollars directly to an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands registered to Derek’s bookmaker."
"She was actively laundering his gambling debts."
"She claims she thought it was a legitimate real estate investment," Marcus said, pulling out into traffic. "But ignorance isn't a defense against federal bank fraud. The FBI served a search warrant on her house two hours ago. They seized her computers, her financial records, and the safe in her bedroom."
"Did they find Derek?"
Marcus shook his head. "He slipped through a perimeter checkpoint near Cleveland last night. He’s running. But he’s out of money, out of allies, and his picture is on the news across three states."
We drove in silence to the site of my clinic.
The building was a modest, single-story brick structure with large floor-to-ceiling windows facing a quiet tree-lined street in Upper Arlington. A temporary plywood sign hung over the entrance, but inside, the concrete floor was cleared, the metal wall studs were framing out the treatment rooms, and sunlight streamed through the clean glass.
Marcus rolled my wheelchair through the front doors. The smell of fresh drywall dust and cut lumber filled the air—the smell of progress.
"It doesn't look like much right now," I murmured, running my hand along the smooth aluminum frame of what would soon be my primary physical therapy bay.
"It looks like a fortress to me," Marcus said. "Your equipment supplier called this morning. They heard about the bank fraud situation through the local news. The CEO of Ohio Medical Supply is a woman whose mother you treated five years ago."
I looked up at him. "And?"
"She’s donating fifty thousand dollars' worth of state-of-the-art rehabilitation equipment on a long-term, zero-interest lease," Marcus smiled. "She said any woman who takes a concrete block to the leg and still manages to drag her criminal family to justice deserves the best equipment in the state."
For the first time in six weeks, tears of relief welled in my eyes. The money my mother had stolen had felt like the fatal blow. But the community I had spent ten years serving was reaching out to catch me as I fell.
Then my phone chimed. It was an emergency alert from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department broadcast to all local residents.
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CRIMINAL ALERT: Derek Sinclair, age 37, wanted for federal bank fraud and violent assault, was last seen on foot in the vicinity of West Broad Street. Subject is considered armed and dangerous.
West Broad Street was six blocks from my daughter’s elementary school.
