Chapter 4 - Caught in the Act
Arthur jumped violently at the sound of her voice, letting out a strangled yelp as the heavy crowbar slipped from his grasp and crashed onto the hardwood floor with a deafening clang. Wendy shrieked at the top of her lungs, the canvas duffel bag slipping from her trembling fingers and spilling its glittering contents across the rug.
They slowly turned around, their eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated terror. They stared at us standing in the doorway as if we were phantoms risen from the grave.
“Mom...?” Arthur stammered, his face instantly turning a sickly, pasty white while sweat beaded profusely across his forehead. “What—how did you get back here? You’re supposed to be—you were checked into the facility!”
“Locked away? Heavily medicated so you could steal my life savings and liquidate my legacy in peace?” Grandma stepped fully into the study, her heavy church coat still perfectly buttoned from chin to waist. “You really are a fool, Arthur. You were too arrogant to realize I updated my emergency contacts and security protocols last week.”
Wendy tried desperately to recover her footing, putting on a sickeningly sweet, trembling smile that looked entirely deranged under the circumstances. “Eleanor! Oh, thank goodness! It’s not what it looks like, I swear! We were just trying to secure your valuable heirlooms before the state authorities stepped in and seized everything—”
“Shut your mouth, Wendy,” Grandma snapped, her voice cracking like a whip.
She reached into her leather handbag and pulled out her cell phone—the modern smartphone Arthur and Wendy assumed she was too technologically inept to operate.
“I called Sheriff Miller from the car thirty minutes ago,” Grandma continued, tapping the screen. “He and I used to play bridge every Tuesday night down at the community center. Let me tell you, he was exceptionally interested to hear why my beloved son and daughter-in-law were currently burglarizing my home and committing grand elder financial fraud.”
Right on cue, the piercing wail of sirens shattered the evening silence. The flashing red and blue lights of two county patrol cruisers painted the Victorian living room walls in frantic neon strokes. Heavy, rapid footsteps pounded up the front porch steps and echoed across the hardwood floors.
Arthur’s knees buckled completely. He dropped heavily to the floor, burying his face in his hands as a pathetic whimper escaped his throat. “Mom, please. Don’t do this to us. Think of the family. We’re your flesh and blood!”
Grandma Eleanor looked down at her forty-five-year-old son, her expression as cold, impassive, and unforgiving as the marble fireplace behind him.
May you like
“My true family is standing right beside me,” she said firmly, turning her head and nodding toward my shoulder. “You two are nothing more than common thieves.”
Heavy footsteps filled the study as two armed county deputies strode into the room. Without a word, they hauled Arthur and Wendy to their feet, snapping cold steel handcuffs around their wrists while they sputtered frantic, unconvincing apologies and began sobbing crocodile tears. We stood in absolute silence, watching as my greedy parents were unceremoniously shoved out the front door and locked into the back of the police cruisers.
