Chapter 6: The Phantom Studio
Back in Dublin, the financial arithmetic of the Miller household began to unravel with swift, inevitable momentum.
Chloe had taken over the basement suite, painting the walls in sterile grey tones and outfitting it with four thousand dollars of leased Scandinavian furniture for her ""lifestyle consultancy.""
However, the high-paying corporate clients she had promised never materialized. Her online webinars generated less than two hundred dollars a month, while the monthly lease on her imported convertible and her commercial software subscriptions drained the family’s remaining savings.
Without Lucas’s reliable one-thousand-dollar monthly contribution and his quiet habit of paying the municipal utility bills, the household budget collapsed into a monthly deficit.
In early March, the property tax assessment arrived from the county auditor: a seven-thousand-dollar municipal infrastructure levy that had previously been absorbed by Lucas's end-of-year architectural bonuses.
Thomas sat at the kitchen table, staring at the red delinquent notice, his hands shaking.
""Call Lucas,"" Thomas muttered to Janice, his pride cracking under the pressure of three maxed-out credit cards. ""Tell him we're willing to negotiate the basement rate back to eight hundred. Tell him we're family and we need him home for the spring.""
Janice picked up her phone, dialing the number she hadn't called in four months.
The automated voice answered immediately:
*“The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.”*
Lucas had changed his number, updated his business registrations, and forwarded his mail to a private commercial postbox in Ross County.
May you like
He had left no forwarding address for people who only reached out when they needed someone to pay the bill.
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