Chapter 4 - The Ghost from the Past
I stared at the security feed, watching my ex-husband jiggle the new keys in the locked door.
Richard had aged terribly, but his cruel, arrogant smirk remained exactly the same.
“Why is your father standing on my front porch, Daniel?” I demanded, my voice trembling with suppressed rage.
Daniel avoided my gaze, suddenly very interested in the granite countertop.
Vanessa, however, stepped forward with a sickeningly sweet smile on her face.
“I invited him, Margaret.”
She poured herself a new glass of champagne, completely unbothered by the steel shutters trapping us inside.
“When Daniel told me how much this estate was worth, we knew you would try to fight us in court.”
Vanessa took a slow sip of her drink, savoring her poisonous victory.
“So, we tracked down Richard and offered him a percentage of the sale to help us crush you.”
Ellen stepped up beside me, her legal mind already analyzing the horrific situation.
“Richard has absolutely no legal claim to this property,” Ellen stated with absolute certainty.
“You bought this house five years after the divorce was finalized.”
Daniel finally looked up, pulling a crumpled, yellowed document from his jacket pocket.
“Actually, Judge Pierce, you might want to read the fine print of their divorce settlement.”
He slid the document across the counter toward Ellen.
“My father included a hidden contingency clause regarding future spousal support and property acquisition.”
Ellen snatched the paper and scanned it rapidly, her jaw tightening with every word she read.
“This clause is highly irregular, and completely predatory,” Ellen muttered.
Richard began pounding his heavy fists against the thick oak of the front door.
“Let me in, Margaret!” his muffled voice shouted from the porch. “I know you are in there!”
I felt a sudden, terrifying wave of claustrophobia washing over me.
For twenty years, I had built this home as a safe sanctuary away from that monster.
Now, my own son had invited the monster back inside just to steal my money.
“If you open that door, Daniel, I will press charges against you for breaking and entering,” I warned.
Daniel laughed, waving the Cayman Islands deed in the air.
“It is my house, Mom, I can invite anyone I want inside.”
He walked over to the smart-home control panel mounted on the hallway wall.
“All I have to do is type in my administrative override code to lift the lockdown.”
He punched a four-digit code into the screen, expecting the steel shutters to rise.
The panel beeped angrily and flashed a bright red error message.
Daniel frowned and typed the code again, but the screen simply locked him out.
“What did you do to the system?” Daniel yelled, hitting the plastic screen with his fist.
I smiled, finally feeling a surge of real power returning to my veins.
“Did you really think a retired real estate attorney would use the factory default security codes?”
I had changed the master passwords the very first day they moved in.
Richard continued to pound on the door, his voice growing louder and more violent.
“Open this door before I break a window, Margaret!”
Ellen pulled out her phone and began dialing the direct line to the chief of police.
“We are going to have Richard arrested for trespassing and Daniel arrested for fraud.”
But just as Ellen pressed the call button, all the lights in the house suddenly went pitch black.
The hum of the refrigerator stopped, and the air conditioning unit powered down completely.
“What happened?” Vanessa shrieked in the darkness.
Daniel pulled out a heavy flashlight and shined the beam directly into my eyes.
“I knew you would try to lock us out of the system, Mom.”
May you like
He lowered the beam, revealing a wicked, triumphant grin in the shadows.
“So, I hired a crew to completely cut the main power lines to the house.”
