Chapter 4 - They Came Before the Rain Dried
"Claire, open this door."
My father's voice pushed through the wood, sharp with entitlement.
I stood beside the staircase and read Mara's warning again.
YOUR FATHER KNEW THE AMOUNT BEFORE THE VERDICT WAS PUBLIC.
I called her.
"Police are on the way," she said. "Do not speak to them unless you can do it through the camera."
I opened the security application on my phone. The front porch appeared from a high angle. My father was red-faced, his gray hair plastered by rain. My mother kept glancing toward the street. Vanessa remained under an umbrella beside the car, typing rapidly.
"I can hear you," I said through the doorbell speaker. "Leave my property."
My mother stepped closer. Her expression rearranged itself into sorrow.
"Sweetheart, we've been so worried. You blocked us. We didn't know if you were eating or sleeping."
"You knew I was burying my family and went to a birthday party."
"That was a misunderstanding. Vanessa had already paid for everything. Hundreds of people were coming."
There had been forty guests. I knew because the venue posted photographs online.
My father slapped his palm against the door. "Enough drama. We made a family decision. Now we need to make another one."
"There is no we."
"Eighteen point seven million dollars says there is."
Vanessa finally approached the porch. "Claire, Mom and Dad are about to lose the house. My studio needs capital. You have more than one person could spend in a lifetime. We are asking you to be fair."
"What amount would be fair?"
My mother brightened, mistaking the question for surrender.
"Three million for your father and me. Two for Vanessa. We also think Aunt Carol deserves five hundred thousand because she helped when you were little. That would still leave you with so much."
They had divided my money before knocking.
"The award is compensation for the lives of my husband and children. Which one of them are you pricing at two million?"
Vanessa's face hardened. "Don't be disgusting."
"Say their names."
No one spoke.
"Say Lily. Say Noah. Say Ethan."
My father looked past the doorbell, as if speaking to a machine excused him from speaking to me. "We didn't drive the truck. Punishing us won't bring them back."
The exact sentence he had used on the day of the funeral returned to me. Sitting there crying isn't going to bring them back.
He had been rehearsing his innocence before I accused him of anything.
"How did you know the amount before the public announcement?" I asked.
My mother's hand flew to the pearl at her throat.
Vanessa answered first. "A reporter called us."
"Name the reporter."
"I didn't write it down."
"Then give the police the number when they arrive."
My father moved closer to the camera. "You do not bring police into a family discussion."
"You brought yourselves to the home of a woman who told you to leave."
Red and blue lights washed across the wet street.
Vanessa cursed. My mother stepped backward, but my father did something that erased any remaining doubt. He did not look toward the approaching patrol car.
He looked toward the black sedan parked two houses away.
Its headlights came on.
The sedan pulled away before the officers turned into my driveway.
My parents became different people as soon as uniforms appeared. My mother cried. Vanessa claimed she feared for my mental health. My father said I had invited them and changed my mind. The doorbell recording contradicted him.
The officers issued trespass warnings and escorted them away.
Before he reached the car, my father turned toward my living room window.
"Ask Ethan why he put my name on the account," he shouted.
Mara arrived thirty minutes later. She carried pepper spray in one hand and a folder in the other.
"What account?" I asked.
"I hoped you could tell me."
She placed a printed document on the table. It was a copy of a financial disclosure Northstar had submitted under seal. Three days before the crash, Ethan transferred two hundred and fifty thousand dollars into an account ending in 9014. The named beneficiary was Robert Vale.
My father.
"This isn't possible. Ethan wouldn't give him a quarter of a million dollars. We didn't even have that kind of cash."
"It came from an account I cannot trace," Mara said. "Northstar says it proves Ethan was embezzling and laundering company money through a relative. They intend to appeal the judgment in the morning."
I studied the signature. It looked like Ethan's, but one detail was wrong. He always crossed the final t in Mercer with a long upward stroke. On the transfer, the line fell downward.
"It's forged."
"Probably. But your father knew about it."
My security camera chimed. A package had been left at the back door without anyone appearing on the recording.
Inside was Noah's blue lantern.
We had left the real one locked in federal evidence.
May you like
This copy was still wet with rain. Taped beneath it was a note written in block letters.
GIVE ROBERT HIS SHARE OR THE NEXT THREE COFFINS WILL BE YOUR FAULT.
