Chapter 5 - Panic in Paradise
The remainder of the Hawaiian vacation did not resemble the luxury escape Rebecca had envisioned when she secured the corporate villa through her commercial design contact.
By Saturday morning, the atmosphere inside the two-story Maui beach house was thick with venom.
"She wouldn't do that," Daniel repeated for the fortieth time, pacing the length of the private lanai while Jack and Emily argued over a box of frosted pastries in the kitchen behind them. "She's seventy-three years old! She doesn't even know how to book an Uber without calling me three times to ask which button means 'confirm'!"
"Then explain the photos, Daniel!" Rebecca shrieked, her voice cutting through the humid island breeze like a table saw. "Brenda walked up to our front window! She took a photo of the kitchen! The refrigerator is gone! The coffee maker is gone! She took the *espresso machine* that I spent three months sourcing from Milan!"
"You didn't source it from Milan, Rebecca! My mother paid for it at the boutique in Kierland!"
"It was in *my* kitchen!" Rebecca’s face had flushed an ugly, blotchy crimson beneath her spray tan. "She lives in *our* house! Everything in that house belongs to us! You cannot just hire a moving company and steal an entire six-thousand-square-foot house while the family is out of the state! That is grand larceny! That is criminal!"
"Stop yelling," Daniel hissed, glancing back toward the children. "Jack! Put the tablet down and go outside!"
"I don't want to go outside," Jack whined from the kitchen island. "The Wi-Fi here sucks and Mom won't let us go to the beach because she’s screaming on the phone."
"Go to the pool!" Daniel roared, his voice cracking with a rage he rarely displayed.
Jack flinched, dropped his pastry onto the counter, and bolted through the side sliding door, dragging Emily by the arm behind him.
Daniel turned back to his wife, his fists clenched at his sides. "We are leaving. Today."
"We can’t leave today!" Rebecca cried, throwing her hands in the air. "The tickets are non-refundable! First class back to Phoenix on Sunday was four thousand dollars! If we change them now, United will charge us an eighteen-hundred-dollar change fee per seat! That's almost eight thousand dollars, Daniel!"
"Do you understand what is happening at our house right now?" Daniel shouted, stepping into her space, his eyes wild. "The HOA has already fined us five hundred dollars! Brenda says the garage door is shut, the curtains are gone, and the entire ground floor looks like a vacant foreclosed property! If my mother has pulled her money—if she’s taken her name off the account—"
He stopped. The words hung between them, heavy and poisonous.
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, *if she's taken her name off the account*?"
Daniel looked away, his jaw working silently.
"Daniel," Rebecca said, her voice dropping into a register that was far more dangerous than her screaming. "What account?"
"The household operational account," Daniel mumbled, staring at the floorboards of the lanai.
"The Chase account? The one we use for the mortgage auto-debit?"
Daniel didn't answer.
"Daniel John Parker!" Rebecca stepped forward, her manicured finger jabbing into his chest. "Tell me right now that the mortgage account is in your name."
"It's a joint account," Daniel whispered. "It’s been a joint account since we bought the place. When we were short on the reserves for the jumbo loan, the underwriter wouldn't approve the debt-to-income ratio on my base salary alone. You know that! My commissions were down twenty percent after the logistics merger! The bank required six months of liquid reserves in an accessible cash account. The only way we qualified was if Mom was listed as the primary joint holder with her Chicago pension and her liquid savings."
Rebecca stared at him as if he had just transformed into a stranger. "You told me she was just an occupant on the title."
"She *is* on the title!" Daniel yelled, defensive now, his voice rising in panic. "She’s on the deed as a twenty-percent tenant-in-common! That was the only way she would release the seventy-five grand for the closing costs!"
"You put your mother on the deed of my house?" Rebecca’s voice rose to a glass-shattering screech. "You let that old woman own twenty percent of my home?"
"It’s not *your* home!" Daniel screamed back, losing all control. "It’s a two-million-dollar mortgage that we can’t afford without her four thousand dollars a month! Who do you think pays the landscaping bill? Who do you think pays the pool guy? Who paid for the country club dues when my third-quarter bonus was delayed? You think that came out of my salary? My salary barely covers your car lease and Emily’s private dance coaches!"
The lanai fell completely silent.
The Pacific Ocean crashed against the lava rock below the resort with a dull, rhythmic thud.
Rebecca stood frozen, her designer sunglasses clutched so tightly in her right hand that the plastic frame snapped with a small, sharp *crack*.
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"Book the flight," she said, her voice trembling with a cold, murderous hatred. "Book the flight right now. And if that old witch has ruined my life, Daniel, I swear to God I will take every single thing you have left."
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