Chapter 2 - The Audit of a Lifetime
By 3:15 AM, the music downstairs had finally sputtered out, replaced by the heavy, leaden silence of a house sleeping off too much alcohol and misplaced triumph. Ernest hadn't slept a wink. He sat in his ergonomic office chair, surrounded by printouts, bank statements, and tax forms that spanned the entirety of Louis's adult life.
The master audit file was complete. Column A: Date. Column B: Merchant. Column C: Amount. Column D: Who benefited (Louis, Carla, or Joint). Column E: The legal classification of the transaction under Illinois civil and criminal statutes regarding elder financial exploitation.
Ernest was no lawyer, but forty years of corporate accounting meant he knew how to read the legal codes that protected seniors from bad actors. And under Illinois law, coercing or fraudulently draining the accounts of an individual over seventy constituted aggravated financial exploitation of an elderly person—a Class 1 felony.
He didn't want to send his son to prison. Not yet. But he wanted the leverage to be absolute, absolute enough that there would be no room for argument, no gaslighting, and no emotional blackmail.
At 7:00 AM, the morning sunlight crept through the slats of the wooden blinds, casting long, golden stripes across the room. Downstairs, the front door rattled, and a muffled voice cursed loudly. It was Louis, stumbling back inside after walking one of his freeloading friends to a rideshare at the curb.
"Carla! Babe!" Louis shouted up the stairs, his voice raspy and coated in stale liquor. "Where’s my wallet? I left it on the kitchen island."
No answer came from the guest room.
"Carla!" Louis yelled louder, stomping his sneakers against the hardwood floor.
A few seconds later, a door clicked open upstairs. Carla’s sleepy, irritated voice drifted down. "Stop screaming, Louis. My head is splitting. Did you check your jacket?"
"I checked everywhere! And my phone’s saying my Apple Pay is declined. What did you touch?"
Ernest didn't move from his desk. He sat quietly, listening to the heavy, panicked thud of Louis’s feet rushing up the stairs toward the master bedroom where Ernest had lived for decades.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"Dad!" Louis hammered on the locked bedroom door. "Dad, open up! What did you do?"
Ernest slowly stood up, smoothing down the wrinkles of his blue button-down shirt. He hadn't changed into pajamas the night before; he had stayed dressed, ready for the business day ahead. He walked across the room, turned the deadbolt, and pulled the door open.
Louis stood there looking disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, his designer t-shirt stretched out of shape, and his jaw slack with sudden, furious panic. Behind him, Carla appeared down the hallway, wrapped in a silk bathrobe, her fake eyelashes hanging off one eyelid like a wounded butterfly.
"Dad," Louis spat out, his voice cracking between anger and disbelief. "What the hell is going on? My cards are blocked. All of them. Even my gas card."
Ernest looked past his son, staring straight into the hallway with an expression so utterly devoid of warmth that Louis actually took a half-step back. It was the look of a stranger, not a father.
"Your cards aren't blocked, Louis," Ernest said evenly, his voice remarkably calm. "They’re canceled. Permanently."
"Canceled?" Louis shrieked, his face flushing a mottled purple. "Are you out of your mind? How am I supposed to get coffee? How is Carla supposed to—"
"Carla can use her own money," Ernest interrupted, his tone cutting through Louis’s rant like a scalpel. "Or better yet, you both can start using the money you’ve been saving from not paying rent, utilities, or groceries for the last forty-eight months."
Carla pushed past Louis, her face contorted into an ugly, defensive sneer. "Listen here, you ungrateful old man! After everything we do for you? Keeping you company so you don’t die alone in this dusty tomb? You cut us off over some silly joke last night?"
Ernest turned his gaze slowly to Carla. "A joke?"
"Yeah, a joke!" Carla crossed her arms, sniffing dismissively. "You’re too sensitive. It was just a dog bowl. Get over yourself. You act like we stole your life."
"No," Ernest said softly, walking past them into the hallway and heading down toward the kitchen. "You didn't steal my life yet. But you tried your absolute best to steal my house."
Louis scrambled after him, grabbing Ernest’s shoulder. "What are you talking about? What house? Dad, stop being dramatic and unlock the accounts right now, or I swear to God—"
"Or what, Louis?" Ernest turned around so fast that Louis flinched. "You’ll serve me dog food again? You’ll invite more parasites into my living room to laugh at the man who feeds and houses them?"
"We were just having a party!" Louis yelled, his voice echoing off the walls. "Everyone does it! You’re just a miserable old hermit who hates seeing his son happy!"
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"Happy," Ernest repeated, nodding slowly. "Yes, you look ecstatic. Especially considering you have a twenty-thousand-dollar wire transfer pending to a luxury car dealership using a forged signature on a property equity line of credit."
The color drained entirely from Louis’s face. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Behind him, Carla froze mid-step on the staircase landing, her hand gripping the banister so tightly her knuckles turned white.
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