Chapter 7 - The Father's Desperation
Twenty-four hours after the arrests at Heritage Crest, the fallout hit critical mass. Pamela and Paisley had been formally booked and spent the night in the county jail. Paisley had been released on her own recognizance due to her pregnancy, but Pamela was held on a twenty-five-thousand-dollar bond due to the severity of the felony identity theft charges.
I was back in the museum's quiet restoration lab, carefully applying hide glue to the fractured mortise joint of my antique drafting table, when the double doors burst open. Arthur stumbled inside.
My father looked like a broken shell of the proud, arrogant patriarch he always pretended to be. His tie was crooked, his dress shirt was stained with sweat, and his thinning gray hair was disheveled. Two security guards were hot on his heels, but I held up a hand, signaling them to wait by the door.
“Audrey,” Arthur gasped, clutching the edge of a display case to steady himself. “Audrey, you have to stop this insanity. Look at what you’re doing to our family!”
“You’re trespassing, Arthur,” I said calmly, not even setting down my spatula. “This is a private museum facility. You have five minutes before security physically removes you.”
“I’m your father!” he shouted, tears welling in his bloodshot eyes. “Pamela is sitting in a cold cell with common criminals! Paisley is having panic attacks on the living room floor! The neighbors saw the squad cars outside our house! The entire neighborhood is whispering about us!”
“The neighbors should have been whispering three years ago when you ran your finances into the ground and expected your daughter to rescue you,” I replied, looking up at him with cold, steady eyes. “Did you know Pamela forged my signature to take out a sixty-thousand-dollar loan against the house, Arthur? Or did you help her sign the paperwork?”
Arthur flinched as if I had struck him across the face. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The guilt was written across every wrinkle of his face. He knew. He had known the entire time.
“We were going to pay it back!” he pleaded, dropping his voice to a desperate whisper. “The market was going to rebound! I had a lead on a commercial strip mall in the south county! We just needed breathing room, Audrey! We gave you life! We raised you! We fed you, clothed you, sent you to college! Is this how you repay twenty-six years of love? By sending your own mother to prison?”
“Love?” A humorless laugh escaped my lips. “You didn't give me love, Arthur. You gave me a bill. And every time I paid it, you added another charge. You watched my sister throw my work into the rain. You stood in the hallway and demanded my rent while my bedroom was stolen from me. You allowed your wife to steal my identity and commit federal crimes in my name.”
“She’s having a baby!” Arthur screamed, losing his composure completely. “Paisley needs a mother! Ember needs a grandmother! If Pamela goes to prison, the family is destroyed! If you drop the charges, we can settle this internally! We’ll give you your room back! We’ll move Paisley down to the basement! We’ll pay you back every dime!”
“With what money, Dad?” I asked, cutting through his delusions like a scalpel. “You’re broke. The bank issued an immediate foreclosure acceleration notice this morning because of the fraudulent liens on the title. The house is gone. Your credit is incinerated. And by the end of next week, the district attorney is going to freeze all your remaining accounts.”
Arthur stared at me, the terrifying reality finally piercing through his thick skull. There was no magic bailout coming. The well had run completely dry.
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“You’re a monster,” he whispered, his voice trembling with venomous hatred. “A cold, heartless monster.”
“No,” I said, standing up tall and looking down at him. “I’m an archivist. I preserve the truth. And the truth is, you brought this destruction upon yourselves. Security, please escort this man off the premises and ensure he is banned from the museum permanently.”
