Chapter 12 - The Skeleton in the Closet
Arthur didn't answer. His knees gave out, his frail frame collapsing onto the porch bench. He buried his wrinkled face in his hands, his breath coming in shallow, wheezing gasps.
"Get inside," Claire ordered, her motherly instincts kicking in as she saw Lily jogging toward the porch, looking curious. "Lily, honey, take Barnaby into the backyard and check his water bowl, okay? Mommy and Grandpa need to look over some boring mail."
"Okay, Mommy!" Lily called out, oblivious to the storm brewing as she skipped away.
Claire marched inside, pulling Arthur with her and shutting the heavy oak door. She slammed the legal packet onto the kitchen table, the papers scattering. A second later, Julianna entered from the hallway, still buttoning her blouse for work.
"What is all the yelling about?" Julianna asked, smoothing her skirt. "I have a client pitch in forty minutes—"
"Shut up, Julianna," Claire snapped, a razor-sharp tone that instantly made Julianna freeze. Claire snatched the promissory note from the pile and shoved it into her sister’s chest. "Take a look at this. Two hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars. Defaulted. Foreclosure scheduled in fourteen days. Does Vance Capital ring any bells?"
Julianna’s eyes scanned the top page, and her polished composure shattered into absolute panic. Her lips trembled. "No... no, no, no. That was supposed to be taken care of. Richard said—"
"Richard?" Claire stepped forward, her eyes blazing with fury. "Richard, that slick venture capitalist boyfriend you brought home two Thanksgivings ago? The one who convinced Dad to invest?"
"I didn't invest," Arthur croaked from the kitchen chair, tears spilling down his hollow cheeks. "Julianna needed collateral to secure her seed round. She said if I signed the secondary guarantee, Richard’s firm would match it dollar for dollar. She swore on her mother’s grave that the house would never be touched... that she was going to be a millionaire before the year was out."
"You mortgaged our home behind my back?" Claire screamed, the old rage she had buried roaring back to the surface. "While I was working sixty hours a week paying the utility bills, paying the property taxes, paying for Dad’s heart medication—you two were gambling the roof over Lily’s head on a fantasy?"
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"Richard took the money and vanished!" Julianna sobbed, dropping to her knees by Claire’s legs. "Claire, I swear, I didn't know he defaulted on the note! I thought he paid it off when our company dissolved! I’ve been trying to find him for six months! He blocked my calls, he deleted his LinkedIn—Marcus Vance, the loan shark who funded the note, he’s dangerous! He told Richard he ruins people for sport!"
Claire looked down at her sobbing sister and her broken father. The temporary peace had been nothing but a thin veil over a rotting floorboard, and now the entire house was falling into the abyss.
