Chapter 5 - The Reckoning in Austin
Two weeks after the art festival, my phone rang while I was at my agency desk.
It was Marcus Vance, the Austin attorney.
"Zoe," Marcus said, his voice carrying a strange mix of professional urgency and quiet satisfaction. "I have some news regarding your father and the Austin property."
"Is Dad okay?" I asked, setting my coffee cup down.
"Physically, yes. Financially and legally, he’s in the middle of a total collapse," Marcus explained. "Three weeks ago, Maria served your father with formal eviction notices from the motel, and she filed for an emergency restraining order to keep him away from the West 12th Street house."
"And?"
"And," Marcus continued, "your father finally hired a local civil litigator to contest the original quitclaim deed. He came to my office yesterday with all his documentation, begging for representation. He realized that Maria and Hazel were never going to let him back in."
I leaned back in my ergonomic chair, looking out the glass window at the Dallas skyline.
"Can he win the deed back, Marcus?"
"It's an uphill battle," Marcus admitted honestly. "Because he signed it voluntarily, proving undue influence or mental incapacity is legally difficult. However... we discovered something else during the preliminary title audit."
"What?"
"The property wasn't just transferred to Maria," Marcus revealed. "Maria immediately took out a secondary commercial equity loan on the house for $250,000 to back Hazel’s boutique clothing venture in Houston. That boutique went bankrupt last month. The commercial lender has already filed a notice of foreclosure against the West 12th Street property."
My breath hitched.
The house my mother bought. The house where she planted hydrangeas. The house where I grew up.
Maria and Hazel hadn't just stolen it to live in it; they had leveraged it to fund a failing fashion store, and now the bank was going to repossess it and sell it at a public auction.
"Can the bank legally foreclose, Marcus?" I asked quietly.
"Unless someone pays off the $250,000 commercial lien before the auction date next month," Marcus said, "the house goes on the block. Your mother's home will belong to a real estate developer."
I sat in silence for a long moment.
My ten-thousand-dollar prize from the design showcase sat in my business savings account. My freelance contracts were expanding. My life was finally my own.
I didn't owe Maria anything. I didn't owe Hazel anything.
May you like
And as for my father... he had made his bed.
"Marcus," I spoke, my voice dropping into an ironclad register. "When is the public auction scheduled?"
