Chapter 8
Inside the living room, the late afternoon light cast long, amber rectangles across the hardwood floor. Clara sat on the beige sofa, a laptop balanced on her knees, while Julian paced the length of the room with a portable phone pressed to his ear. The speakerphone crackled with static before a gruff, tired voice broke through the line from a Reno municipal office.
"Look, Mr. Vance," the parole officer said, his tone dismissive and hurried. "Arthur isn't interested in signing anything that brings the feds back to his doorstep. The man is seventy-two, living on oxygen tanks and instant coffee. He doesn't care about your mortgage or your unborn child."
"Tell him that if he doesn't sign the affidavit within forty-eight hours, I am turning over his current whereabouts and medical records directly to the federal prosecutor handling the estate fraud," Julian said, his voice dropping into a cold, steady register that Clara had rarely heard before. It was the voice of a man who had finally reached the end of his capacity for compromise.
A heavy silence hung on the line. The only sound was the faint hum of office machinery in the background across the country.
"Hold on," the parole officer grunted. The sound of shuffling paper and a muffled cough came through the speaker. A minute passed, feeling like an hour. Then, a wheezing, raspy voice hissed through the tiny speaker.
"Julian?" the old man rasped. "Is that really you, boy? You sound just like your grandfather when he threatened to throw me off the hayloft."
Julian froze, the phone trembling slightly in his hand. He looked across the room at Clara, who nodded encouragingly, her eyes wide and focused.
"Cut the nostalgia, Arthur," Julian said, biting off each word. "You used my social security number to backstop your bad loans twenty years ago. Now the bank is trying to take my home and my family’s future. You’re going to sign the confession, and you’re going to do it today, or I will personally make sure the remainder of your natural life is spent in a cell with no visitors."
"Always the dramatic one," Arthur wheezed with a weak, rattling chuckle that turned into a wet cough. "You think I wanted to ruin you, kid? Your mother knew about the loans. She signed off on the secondary credit line when you were eighteen to pay off her own gambling debts. I just held the pen."
May you like
The room seemed to drop ten degrees. Julian stopped pacing, the phone slipping slightly from his ear as the new revelation crashed over him like an icy wave. He looked at Clara, his face completely pale, the betrayal cutting far deeper than an estranged uncle’s crimes. It wasn't just a distant relative’s ghost; it was a betrayal handed down by the very person who had dropped that package on their doorstep the night before.
***
