Chapter 7 - THE WALK TO THE CRUISER
Officer Miller didn't waste time. He stepped forward, and the sharp click of steel handcuffs echoing in the small kitchen sounded like the final bell of a long, brutal match.
“Stanley Sterling, you have the right to remain silent...”
Stanley didn't fight. He didn't yell. He just let his shoulders slump, his expensive watch catching the morning sun one last time as his hands were cuffed behind his back. As they led him past the kitchen table, he glared at me with a look of pure, unadulterated venom.
“You’ll never sell this house,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Without my signature on the structural liens, it’s tied up in probate for a decade. You’ll die in this dump broke.”
“Maybe,” I said, meeting his gaze without flinching. “But I’ll die owing nothing to a thief.”
Officer Miller nudged him toward the front door. “Keep moving, Sterling.”
When the front door closed, the house seemed to exhale. The heavy, suffocating pressure that had lived in the hallways for three years vanished all at once, sucked out into the crisp morning air.
Vanessa remained on the kitchen floor, rocking back and forth, staring at the scuff marks on the linoleum.
“Get up, Vanessa,” I said.
She looked up, her mascara smeared, her face hollow. “Mom... where do I go?”
“I don't know,” I said, walking to the front hall and opening the front door wide, letting the cool autumn wind sweep through the foyer. “But you have two hours to pack your bags. After that, the locks are changing.”
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She didn't argue. She stood up on shaking legs and hurried down the hall toward the guest bedroom, the sound of her hurried footsteps the last domestic noise I ever expected to hear in this house again.
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