Chapter 8 - The Emergency Summons in the Kitchen
The fallout didn't stay at the lake house. By Monday morning, my phone was vibrating so hard against the kitchen counter it sounded like an electric razor stuck on high speed.
I ignored Marguerite’s first six calls. I let her voicemails fill up my digital inbox without listening to a single one.
When my father finally called from his landline at 10:15 AM, I answered on the fourth ring.
“Linnea?” His voice sounded old—thinner, crackling with a strange, brittle vulnerability I had never heard in all my years of trying to earn his approval. “Linnea, please. Your sister is beside herself. The bank froze the dealership operating accounts this morning. Richard can’t even meet payroll for the service department.”
I remained silent, standing by the kitchen window watching a delivery truck pull up to Presley’s hardware store downstairs.
“Your lawyer... this woman, Victoria Vance-Cole, she’s talking about criminal indictments,” Dad continued, his breath catching in his throat. “Over a family misunderstanding. Your mother wouldn't want this, Lynn. We’re family. Family doesn't drag each other into courtrooms.”
“You’re right, Dad,” I said, my voice entirely level, stripped of the desperate need for validation that had defined my entire childhood. “Family doesn't steal ninety-six thousand dollars from children to buy car dealerships.”
There was a long, agonizing silence on the other end of the line. The only sound was the faint, rhythmic clang of our radiator, which was finally cooling down for the summer.
“It was supposed to be a loan,” Dad whispered, the defense sounding hollow even to him. “Richard promised he’d pay it back with interest before the girls turned eighteen. We just... we needed the liquidity for the expansion.”
“You didn't borrow it, Dad,” I said quietly. “You took it from Faye, Della, and Beckett because you assumed nobody would ever check the math. You assumed we were poor, and poor people don't hire attorneys to audit trust accounts.”
“Lynn—”
“Tell Marguerite to have her husband sign the full restitution settlement drawn up by Victoria’s office before Wednesday morning,” I said, cutting him off cleanly. “If he signs over the equivalent equity from his commercial property holdings to re-fund my children's trusts in full, plus legal fees, I’ll instruct my attorney to recommend a civil settlement instead of cooperating with the state prosecutor’s office on the criminal fraud charges.”
“You’re... you’re threatening your own brother-in-law with prison?” Dad breathed, horror bleeding into his voice.
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“No, Dad,” I said, looking across the room at Faye and Della, who were sitting at the kitchen table drawing pictures of sailboats with markers that didn't have to be rationed. “I’m just doing the math.”
I hung up the phone.
