Chapter 5
Daniel reached the garage first.
I followed despite my mother begging me to stay back.
Ryan stood near the workbench with blood on his hand from the broken window.
Beside him was a large man wearing a black jacket and gloves.
The stranger held my laptop.
“Put it down,” Daniel ordered.
The man laughed.
Then Charles entered behind us.
His face went pale.
“Victor.”
The stranger’s smile disappeared.
“You shouldn’t be here, old man.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
Charles did not look away from Victor.
“He collects Diane’s debts.”
Ryan stared at him.
“My mother doesn’t have debts.”
Victor tossed the laptop onto the workbench.
“Your mother owes my employer two hundred thousand dollars.”
Ryan shook his head.
“That’s impossible.”
“She lost it through a fake investment operation,” Charles said. “That’s why she needed Emma’s house.”
Victor reached into his jacket.
Daniel raised the fireplace poker.
I feared he had a gun.
Instead, he pulled out a small bottle of lighter fluid.
“Everyone step outside.”
“You’ll burn the whole house,” I said.
“Only if you make this difficult.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Victor cursed.
Ryan moved suddenly.
He grabbed the laptop and ran toward the basement door.
Victor tackled him.
They crashed into a shelf.
Tools and paint cans fell around them.
Daniel pulled Victor away while Dad helped Ryan stand.
I took the laptop.
Victor swung at Daniel.
Daniel ducked and drove his shoulder into Victor’s chest.
The garage door shook as police officers forced it open from outside.
“Hands where we can see them!”
Victor dropped the lighter fluid.
Ryan immediately pointed at him.
“He broke in! He threatened us!”
I stared at my husband.
“You broke the window.”
“Emma, be quiet.”
One officer looked at the blood on Ryan’s hand.
Another examined the glass scattered inside the garage.
Because the glass was inside, it was obvious the window had been broken from outside.
Ryan had climbed through it.
The officers handcuffed both men.
Ryan panicked.
“This is my house!”
“It is not his house,” I said. “I ordered him to leave last night.”
“He’s my husband!”
“And he broke in to destroy evidence connected to a financial crime.”
Ryan turned toward me with hatred in his eyes.
That look finally killed whatever love I had left.
“You think you’re innocent?” he shouted. “You signed papers too.”
My breath caught.
“What papers?”
He laughed bitterly.
“The insurance forms last month.”
I remembered signing documents after Ryan told me our homeowner’s policy needed to be renewed.
Charles took the laptop from my hands and set it on the table.
“Emma, those may not have been insurance forms.”
The police led Victor and Ryan outside.
Ryan kept shouting.
“You’re going down with us!”
The word us echoed through the garage.
Not Mom.
Us.
He knew more than he had admitted.
I searched the laptop after the police left.
Several files had been deleted.
But the trash folder had not been emptied.
Inside were scanned loan applications bearing my signature.
The signatures looked real.
Because they were real.
Ryan had placed different pages above the signature lines when I signed.
I had unknowingly authorized a loan for four hundred thousand dollars.
The lender was scheduled to release the funds in two days.
My house had already been used as collateral.
I called the bank’s emergency fraud department.
The representative froze the loan while an investigation began.
Then she asked a question I was not ready for.
“Mrs. Whitmore, did you also authorize your husband to increase your life insurance policy?”
“No.”
“There is a policy for one million dollars.”
My hands began to shake.
“Who receives the money if I die?”
She hesitated.
“Whitmore Family Holdings.”
The room became silent.
Mom covered her mouth.
Dad gripped the back of a chair.
Daniel looked ready to tear the house apart.
Charles slowly sat down.
“This was never just about taking your home,” he said.
My phone buzzed with a scheduled email from Ryan’s account.
The subject line read: IF CHRISTMAS GOES WRONG.
I opened it.
May you like
There was only one sentence.
Mom says the accident must happen before New Year’s Eve.
