Chapter 3 - The Cold Hand of the Law
The police station in Lower Paxton Township was not equipped for high society. The walls were painted that municipal shade of institutional pea-green that seemed designed to leech hope directly from human bone, and the floor tiles were scuffed with years of salt, mud, and cigarette ash.
I sat in an auxiliary interrogation room, wrapped in a gray fleece blanket Caroline had given me before the transport van brought me over from the hospital. The local anesthetic around my temple was beginning to wear off, replaced by a thudding, rhythmic ache that felt as though a steel spike were being driven into my skull with every beat of my heart.
Across from me sat Arthur Byrne.
Arthur was seventy-one years old, possessed a head of snow-white hair, and had been my late father’s estate attorney for thirty years. Judith had tried to contact him five minutes after her arrest, but Arthur hadn’t answered her call. He had answered mine.
“They’re downstairs,” Arthur said quietly, sliding a paper cup of black coffee across the table toward me. “Both of them. In holding.”
“Has my mother asked to see me?” I asked.
Arthur looked down at his leather briefcase. The guilt on his face was palpable, etched deep into the wrinkles around his mouth. “Judith doesn't understand what is happening, Paige. She thinks this is a misunderstanding that can be smoothed over with an affidavit of non-prosecution. She told Detective Vance that you were having an emotional breakdown due to stress and that if you simply withdrew the report, she wouldn't press charges against *you* for property damage.”
A bitter, dry laugh caught in my throat. “Property damage. The crystal glass.”
“The glass,” Arthur confirmed with a grim nod. “And the coffee table you knocked into when you fought Sloane off.”
I leaned forward, my knuckles turning white against the edge of the laminate table. “Arthur, you’ve managed my father’s trust since I was six years old. When he died eight years ago, he left the house to Judith for her lifetime, but what happened to the commercial holdings? What happened to the trust accounts in my name?”
Arthur closed his eyes. When he opened them, the sorrow in his gaze was heavier than the headache splitting my skull.
“Paige... when you turned twenty-one, your mother brought in documents. Powers of attorney. Signature transfer cards for the Merrill Lynch accounts. You signed them in my office.”
“I was twenty-one!” I said, my voice rising, trembling with the pent-up fury of a decade of silence. “I was a junior in college! She told me they were tax waivers so the state wouldn't audit Dad's pension! She stood over my shoulder and turned the pages so I could only see the signature lines!”
“I know,” Arthur said softly. “And that, my dear, is the great sin of my professional career. I knew your father. David Merritt was an honorable man. But after he was buried, Judith made it very clear that if I raised questions about how she was administering the girls' portions, she would move the entire estate portfolio to an outside firm in Philadelphia. I convinced myself that she was keeping the money safe for you and Sloane. That she was keeping the family together.”
“She wasn't keeping us together,” I said, lifting my chin so Arthur had to look at the eight dark stitches crossing my hairline, the black swelling that had shut my left eye completely. “She was farming me. Look at this, Arthur. Look at what keeping the family together looks like.”
The heavy steel door swung open, and Detective Vance walked in. She carried a thick manila folder, which she dropped onto the table with an authoritative slap.
“We ran Sloane’s phone,” Vance said, pulling up a chair and sitting down with a tired sigh. “She didn't even have a lock code on it. Miss Merritt, are you aware that your sister has three different credit cards currently operating under your Social Security number?”
I closed my eyes. The room seemed to tilt. “I... I knew she had one for emergencies. When she went to Europe two years ago, she said her credit limit was too low for the car rental deposit.”
“She doesn't have one,” Vance said flatly. “She has three. A Chase Sapphire, an Amex Platinum, and a line of credit through a retail lender in Manhattan. Combined balance: ninety-four thousand dollars. And that’s just the consumer debt. Arthur, you might want to look at this.”
Vance slid a single sheet of paper toward the lawyer.
Arthur adjusted his reading glasses. As his eyes tracked down the page, all the color drained from his weathered face.
“This can’t be,” Arthur whispered. “The Orchard Lane property was free and clear. David paid off the primary lien in ninety-eight.”
“It *was* free and clear,” Vance replied. “Until fourteen months ago, when a private equity lender out of Delaware issued a second mortgage for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars against the primary residence. The borrower of record is Paige Merritt.”
My breath seized in my throat. “I never signed a mortgage. I have never seen a lender. I don't even own the deed—Judith has the life estate!”
“Your signature was notarized,” Vance said, her eyes fixed on mine with deep sympathy. “By a mobile notary who happened to visit your mother’s house while you were at work. Do you know who works for that notary service, Paige? Your sister’s former fiancé, Mark Hensley.”
The puzzle pieces did not just fit together; they slammed into place with the concussive force of an artillery shell.
The sudden panic when I announced my move to Philadelphia.
The rage when I told them I had rented a loft near Rittenhouse Square and had already set up my own independent accounts for my marketing consultancy.
The frantic demands that I stay until the end of the year *“for the sake of tradition.”*
They weren't afraid of losing their daughter or their sister. They weren't even afraid of being lonely in that cavernous, cold colonial.
The first payment on that fraudulent four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar note was due on November first.
If I had left for Philadelphia, if my income stopped flowing directly into the joint household checking account that Judith controlled, the default notice would have arrived within thirty days. The forensic audit would have begun. The forgery would have surfaced.
They hadn't locked the front door to convince me to stay.
May you like
They had locked the front door because if I walked out into the sunlight of the real world, both of them were heading directly to state prison.
***
