Chapter 6 - Dawn of the Audit
The first sliver of pale morning sunlight cut horizontally across the dusty garage floor like a laser beam, illuminating floating motes of gray dust and spiderwebs hanging from the rafters.
My body felt like it had been run over by a steamroller.
Every joint ached. My throat was as dry as sandpaper, and a splitting dehydration headache throbbed behind my eyes with every heartbeat. The titanium brace felt like a branding iron locked around my thigh.
Around 7:00 AM, heavy footsteps approached the utility door on the other side of the garage.
Click.
The deadbolt turned, and the heavy steel door swung inward a few inches.
Harrison stood in the doorway wearing a plush bathrobe, holding a steaming ceramic mug of artisan coffee in one hand and a paper plate with a half-eaten blueberry muffin in the other. He didn't step inside; he stood safely on the threshold, peering into the dim gloom of the garage like a zookeeper checking on a dangerous animal in a cage.
“Eleanor?” he called out, his voice pitched with an oily, forced casualness.
I didn't move. I kept my eyes closed beneath the dusty moving blanket, regulating my breathing to sound slow, heavy, and semi-conscious.
“Eleanor, are you awake?” he asked louder, stepping one foot past the threshold.
When I still didn't answer, he sighed—an exaggerated, martyr-like sound meant to convince himself he was the victim in this scenario.
“Look, I brought you some water,” he lied, setting a single, half-empty plastic water bottle down on the concrete floor about five feet from the doorway. “Mom says you’re being impossible, but I’m trying to be reasonable here. Just sign the power of attorney transfer papers when I bring them down later today, and we can end this whole ugly mess. You can have a proper hospital bed upstairs. Sound fair?”
I remained perfectly still, letting out a faint, ragged groan that sounded convincing enough to sell the illusion of physical collapse.
Harrison stood there for another ten seconds, sipping his coffee. Then, apparently satisfied that I was broken and docile, he grunted, stepped back inside the house, and pulled the steel door shut.
Click.
The deadbolt engaged.
I waited two full minutes until his footsteps faded away toward the kitchen. Then, opening my eyes, I slowly pushed the blanket off my shoulders and crawled the short distance to where he had left the plastic water bottle.
I unscrewed the cap with trembling fingers and drank the cool water in long, desperate gulps. It tasted like salvation.
The clock inside my head was ticking louder now.
It was 7:30 AM on Wednesday.
May you like
My dead-man switch at the forensic accounting firm wouldn't trip until Thursday morning at 8:00 AM. That meant I had roughly twenty-four hours to hold my ground, stay hidden, and wait for federal compliance officers and local police to execute the search warrant.
All I had to do was survive one more day.
