Chapter 3 - The Parasite Feast
The morning sun hit the French windows of 742 Willow Crest Lane at seven-thirty, casting long golden rectangles across the kitchen floor.
Through the feed on my tablet, I watched the morning unfold.
Brooke was the first to emerge, wrapped in my plush cashmere bathrobe, her bare feet padding down the oak stairs. She walked directly into the kitchen, humming a jaunty tune, and pressed the button on my Italian espresso machine.
Nothing happened.
She pressed it again, harder. The digital display remained dead.
She frowned, reached up, and flipped the switch for the under-cabinet lighting. Nothing. She clicked the garbage disposal. Total silence.
"Kyle!" she shouted, her voice echoing shrilly through the house. "Kyle, get up! The damn breaker tripped again!"
From the living room, Kyle groaned, rolling off the sofa with a muttered curse. He stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing his bloodshot eyes, holding his phone in front of his face.
"My phone isn't working," he slurred, shaking the device as if physical agitation would summon a signal. "No bars. It says 'No SIM Authorized.' Did you pay the bill?"
"What are you talking about? Nora’s account auto-pays on the fifth!" Brooke snapped, walking over to the refrigerator. When she pulled the door open, the interior light stayed dark. The faint hum of the compressor was gone. "Why is there no power? Did she turn it off?"
"She can't," Kyle scoffed, leaning against the counter. "The law protects tenants. Even if she threw a tantrum, the city requires thirty days' notice before they cut off the grid. It's probably just a neighborhood outage. Go look outside."
Brooke walked over to the bay window, pulling back the silk drapes.
Across the street, Mrs. Higgins was casually running an electric leaf blower on her lawn. The streetlights at the intersection were glowing with bright green signals. The neighborhood had power. Only 742 Willow Crest Lane was dead in the water.
At that exact moment, my mother came down the stairs, wearing her Sunday best, clutching her leather purse. She had an appointment with her bridge group at nine, an event where she undoubtedly planned to boast about how her children had finally "reorganized the family estate."
"Why is it so chilly in here?" Evelyn complained, adjusting her wool cardigan. "And why isn't the kettle on? Brooke, make me some tea."
"We don't have power, Mom," Brooke said, her voice tightening with the first faint prickle of unease. "And our phones are down."
"Well, use the landline!"
"Nora disconnected the landline two years ago, Mom! We all use cell phones!" Brooke pulled her hair back in frustration. "Kyle, go take my car and drive down to the coffee shop. Pick up some lattes and use their Wi-Fi to check our bank balance. We need to see if the maintenance transfer cleared."
"I don't have gas money," Kyle muttered, holding out his empty wallet. "I used the last forty bucks on beer last night."
"Use the gold debit card!" Brooke yelled, digging into her designer purse—the one I had bought her for her birthday—and throwing the Family Maintenance card at his chest. "There’s thirty grand in there! Just pull out two hundred from the ATM!"
Kyle caught the card, grabbed his keys from the entry console, and walked out the door.
From my penthouse, sipping a cup of fresh black coffee, I watched the entire domestic breakdown with clinical detachment.
Ten minutes later, the live feed picked up Kyle’s return.
He didn't walk through the front door—he practically kicked it open, his face pale and slick with cold sweat.
"Kyle?" Brooke asked, coming out of the kitchen with an apple in her hand. "Where’s the coffee?"
"The card got swallowed," Kyle said, his voice cracking like an adolescent’s.
"What do you mean, swallowed?"
"I put it in the drive-thru ATM at the credit union," Kyle stammered, his hands shaking as he gestured wildly. "The screen turned red. It didn't say 'insufficient funds.' It said 'Card Confiscated by Issuing Authority: Account Frozen under Suspicion of Fraud.' Then two squad cars pulled into the gas station across the street, and I panicked and drove off!"
Evelyn dropped her purse onto the floor. "Frozen? That's our money! My husband worked for that money!"
"No, Mom," Brooke whispered, the color draining from her cheeks as the cold, terrifying reality finally began to dawn on her. "Dad didn't leave that account to us. Nora set that account up. Nora funded it."
Brooke walked slowly toward the front door, looking at the dead brass deadbolt they had installed with such smug satisfaction the previous evening.
"She didn't run away," Brooke murmured, staring at the wood. "She didn't go hide in some cheap hotel."
"Then where is she?" Evelyn demanded, her voice rising to a frantic, piercing pitch. "Where is that ungrateful little brat?!"
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I looked at my watch. It was 9:45 AM.
"I'm right here," I said quietly to the empty penthouse. "And court is now in session."
