Chapter 7 - Emotional Consequence
“Buncombe County Emergency Dispatch, what is your location?” the operator’s voice crackled through the speakerphone.
“My name is Rachel Monroe,” I said clearly. “I am at 442 Whispering Pines Trail. I am reporting an active residential burglary, criminal forgery, and domestic disturbance. I have the perpetrators detained inside the residence. Please send deputies immediately.”
“Rachel, no!” Mark fell to his knees on the rug.
A grown man, six feet two inches tall, kneeling on the floor, weeping into his hands. “Rachel, please, don’t do this! If Brooke gets a felony conviction, she loses custody of her kids! Mom will lose her house! My firm will lose its state license! It will destroy us completely!”
“You destroyed yourself, Mark,” I said, looking down at him.
The love I had carried for him for six years didn't die with a scream; it died with a flatline. I looked at the man I had kissed every morning, the man who had promised to stand between my children and the cruelty of the world, and I felt nothing. No anger. No sadness. Only the profound, clinical disgust one feels toward a rotting piece of fruit.
Behind me, the sound of soft sobbing made me turn.
Lily had finally broken down. She was huddled against the bookcase, her face buried in her knees, her small shoulders heaving. Noah was crouched beside her, his hand rubbing her back, his eyes locked on Mark with an expression of pure, unadulterated contempt.
“Dad?” Lily choked out through her tears, looking up with reddened eyes. “Did you really hate us that much? Was everything a lie?”
Mark looked at Lily, and I saw something shatter behind his eyes. A man can deceive himself into believing his moral compromises are noble sacrifices for his family, but when he is forced to see his actions through the clear, unclouded eyes of a child he claimed to father, the self-deception becomes unbearable.
“No, Lily... no, baby, no,” Mark sobbed, crawling toward her on his knees. “I love you. You’re my little girl. I swear to you, I never wanted you to leave your room! I was trying to save everyone!”
“Stay away from her,” Noah barked, stepping directly between his sister and the man who had raised him for six years. “Don't you dare touch her. You let your mother treat us like garbage every single Thanksgiving. You let Aunt Brooke laugh at my dad’s old watch. You never loved us. You just wanted Mom’s house.”
Mark collapsed onto the floorboards, burying his face in his hands, his body wracked by violent, ugly sobs.
Judith stood frozen by the window, her hands trembling as she adjusted her gold earrings, her face a mask of pale, aristocratic ruin. Her grandchildren—Brooke’s three children—were still upstairs, oblivious, playing video games on Lily’s television, unaware that their mother’s greed was about to dismantle their entire world.
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“Pack your bags,” I told Judith and Brooke. “You have approximately seven minutes before the deputies arrive. If you are still in this house when they step through that door, I will press every single charge the District Attorney can draft.”
***
