He jammed the flat end of the crowbar into the gap between the double doors. He leaned his entire body weight into it.
“No!” the locksmith yelled, stepping back. “You’re gonna break the frame!”
“I don’t care!” Derek screamed.
Inside the foyer, I stood perfectly still.
Officer Tate had unholstered his taser. He was watching the door with the intense focus of a predator.
“Wait,” I whispered. “Let them breach.”
There was a sickening crunch of wood splintering. The heavy oak, which had stood for a hundred years, groaned under the pressure. The deadbolt was strong, but the wood around it was yielding.
Derek gave a final, primal grunt and shoved.
Bang.
The sound was like a gunshot.
The door flew open, rebounding off the interior wall with a violence that shook the floorboards.
A gust of freezing wind and snow blasted into the warm foyer, extinguishing the candles on the entry table instantly.
Derek stumbled into the house, the crowbar still in his hand, his chest heaving. He looked wild, his eyes manic.
“We’re in!” he shouted, turning back to the porch. “Dad, we’re in!”
Graham marched in behind him, shaking snow off his coat. His face flushed with victory. Marilyn followed, stepping gingerly over the splintered wood, still dabbing at her dry eyes.
The new locksmith lingered on the porch, looking terrified, clearly realizing he had just participated in a felony.
Derek raised his crowbar in triumph. He looked around the dark foyer, his eyes adjusting to the gloom.
“Clare!” he screamed. “Game over. Come out and sign the papers. We’re not leaving until—”
And then he stopped.
He stopped because his eyes had finally adjusted to the dim light.
He stopped because he saw the Christmas tree, lit with hundreds of silent white lights.
He stopped because he realized the foyer was not empty.
From the shadows of the parlor, Arthur Abernathy stepped out. He was holding his glass of wine, looking at Derek with the disdain one might reserve for a cockroach on a wedding cake.
Behind him, three other elderly members of the historical society stood in a phalanx of judgment.
From the kitchen, Andrea Mott emerged. She held her phone up, recording. Her face was grim.
From the corner near the coat rack, Jim Miller, the original locksmith, stood up. He looked at Graham with a mixture of shame and anger.
And from the alcove under the stairs, Officer Tate stepped into the light. His hand was resting on his belt. His badge gleamed in the light of the Christmas tree.
The silence that fell over the room was heavier than the door itself.
Derek lowered the crowbar slowly, his mouth hanging open. He looked from the police officer to the reporter to the neighbors. He looked like a child who had been caught setting fire to the curtains.
Graham froze midstep. His arrogant bluster evaporated instantly. He looked at the crowd, then at the shattered door frame, then back at the crowd. His brain was frantically trying to recalibrate, to find a spin, a lie that could cover this.
Marilyn let out a small, sharp gasp. Her hand flew to her throat. The tears stopped instantly.
“Oh,” Graham said. His voice was weak, stripped of all its power. “We didn’t know you had company.”
He tried to smile. It was a ghastly, rictus grin.
“We were just worried,” Graham stammered, looking at Officer Tate. “It was a wellness check. A family emergency. We thought she was hurt.”
Marilyn latched onto the lie immediately.
“Yes, yes,” she sobbed, trying to summon the tears again. “We thought she was unconscious. We had to break in to save her.”
I stepped out from behind the heavy velvet curtain of the library archway.
I walked into the center of the foyer.
The draft from the open door was freezing, biting at my bare arms, but I didn’t feel it. I felt only the heat of the moment I had been waiting for my entire life.
I stood between them and my guests.
I looked at Derek, still holding the weapon he had used to smash my home. I looked at Graham, clutching the fraudulent power-of-attorney papers.
I looked at Marilyn, whose mask was slipping to reveal the terrified narcissist beneath.
“You didn’t come to save me,” I said. My voice was quiet, but in the silence of the hall, it carried like a bell.
I held up my phone. On the screen was the footage of Derek streaming his victory speech about “taking back what is ours.”
“You came to rob me,” I said.
Graham’s face went pale.
“Clare, please. This is a misunderstanding. Let’s go to the kitchen and talk. Just family.”
“Just family,” I repeated. I turned to Grant Holloway, who had walked in from the back office where he had been waiting on speakerphone. He was holding a thick file folder.
I looked at Graham.
“No more talking,” I said.
I nodded to Grant.
“It’s time to read the file.”
Grant Holloway stepped forward into the pool of light cast by the chandelier. He held the file folder like a weapon, his face set in a mask of absolute, unyielding professional boredom. He did not look at Graham with anger. He looked at him with the fatigue of a man who had to explain gravity to a toddler.
“Mr. Caldwell,” Grant said, his voice echoing slightly in the high-ceiling foyer, “you’re holding a power-of-attorney document for Clare Lopez. Is that correct?”
Graham straightened his coat, trying to regain the shred of dignity he had lost when he realized he was surrounded.
“Yes,” he snapped. “It grants us full authority over her financial and medical decisions in the event of incapacitation. And looking at this…” He gestured vaguely at the room full of strangers. “She is clearly incapacitated.”
Grant opened his folder. He pulled out a single sheet of paper with a gold seal at the bottom.
“That’s fascinating,” Grant said. “However, there’s a fundamental flaw in your strategy.
“This property—the manor at 440 Blackwood Lane—does not belong to Clare Lopez.”
Graham blinked.
“What?”
Grant held up the document.
“As of three weeks ago, this property was transferred in its entirety to the Glenn Haven Preservation Trust, a corporate entity registered in the state of Delaware. Miss Lopez is the resident trustee, yes, but she does not hold the title.”
Grant took a step closer to Graham.
“Your power of attorney allows you to manage Clare’s personal assets,” Grant continued, “but it does not give you the authority to break down the door of a corporation. You are not breaking into your daughter’s house, Graham. You are breaking into a corporate headquarters, and unless you have a board resolution from the trust authorizing this entry, you are committing corporate espionage and felony trespass.”
Graham’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. The legal ground had just vanished beneath his feet. He looked at the paper in his hand, the paper he had pinned all his hopes on, and realized it was worthless.
I stepped forward then.
