Chapter 3 - The Departure
The black SUV idling in the driveway was a rental—a Ford Explorer with Enterprise stickers still peeling off the rear bumper.
Adrian loaded Nora’s leather suitcase into the back, making sure to wedge it securely between two duffels of his own gear. The morning sun was high enough now to burn the mist off the lawn, cutting sharp shadows across the manicured boxwood hedges that Evelyn had spent twenty years pruning into submission.
Through the front window of the house, he could see his mother moving from room to room like a ghost trapped in an attic, her silk robe rustling against the doorframes as she swept up whatever silver and small valuables she could shove into a Louis Vuitton duffel before the marshals arrived.
Ryan was sitting on the front steps, his designer sneakers scuffing against the brickwork, staring at his phone with a look of stunned, vacant disbelief. He hadn't packed a single bag. He seemed to genuinely believe that if he sat there long enough, his mother would somehow fix the universe and make the numbers on the bank statements disappear.
Nora walked out of the front door slowly, her hand resting on the small of her back. She looked down at the lawn—the green grass she had spent her Saturdays watering while Evelyn sat on the patio and criticized the angle of the sprinkler heads.
"Where are we going?" she asked softly, as Adrian opened the passenger door for her.
"A place where nobody knows our names, nobody owns a trust fund, and nobody has a silver basin," Adrian said, helping her into the heated seat.
He closed the door, walked around to the driver's side, and slid behind the wheel. As he put the transmission into drive, a black sedan with county plates turned into the driveway, rolling slowly toward them with its headlights off.
The driver—a deputy marshal in a dark tactical vest—lifted two fingers from the steering wheel in a silent, professional greeting as he passed.
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Adrian didn't look back in the rearview mirror. He pulled out onto Crestwood Lane, shifted into third gear, and drove away from the only home he had ever known, leaving the past behind in a cloud of Fayetteville dust.
***
