Chapter 9 - The House of Cards Collapses
The arrest of Jason Vance did not happen with a cinematic struggle.
It happened with a pathetic, whimpering collapse. He didn't even have the dignity to stand up straight when Deputy Wayne pulled his arms behind his back. The metal handcuffs clicked shut with that flat, permanent sound that ends all arguments.
"Olivia!" Jason choked out, his face pressed against the cold plaster wall beside the drinking fountain. "Call Mark! Call your mother! Tell her to use the house in Boulder—"
"The house in Boulder has a foreclosure sale scheduled for January 12th, Jason," Sterling Henderson said, leaning against the counter and signing an affidavit Mary-Ann had slid through the slot. "My legal team pulled the notice from the Boulder Daily Camera twenty minutes ago. You haven't paid the first deed of trust since August."
Olivia backed away from her husband as if he had suddenly caught fire.
Her face was a shifting puzzle of horror, vanity, and calculated betrayal. For ten years, she had built her identity around being the wife of a visionary developer—the girl who had made it out of the working-class military tracks of Colorado Springs and into the gated circles of the Front Range elite.
"I didn't know," Olivia gasped, her hands flying to her throat, her voice instantly shifting into the register of the innocent bystander. "Becca... I swear to you, I didn't know! Jason told me the Boulder house was clear! He told me he had purchased this lodge through an intermediary company to surprise me for Christmas! He told me—"
"Shut up, Olivia," I said.
The silence that followed was total. Even the radiator stopped clanking.
I walked over to where she was standing, her back pressed against the wood-paneled bulletin board where missing hound dogs and wildfire warnings were pinned.
"You knew," I told her, my voice barely above a whisper, but heavy enough to pin her to the wall. "You knew because you were the one who stole Dad’s medals. You knew where the safe was because I showed you two years ago when I thought you were my sister. You brought the drill. You brought Arthur Higgins because you thought if you could get my name off that title for forty-eight hours, Jason could pull an emergency hard-money bridge loan against this parcel and cover the Belize transfer."
"Becca, please..." she whispered, her eyes darting toward the street where two more patrol cars were pulling up with their lights flashing. "Mom will die if I go to jail. Who’s going to take care of Leo and Maya?"
"The children are going to stay with Aunt Carol in Montrose," Sean Crawford said, stepping between us. "Social Services is already at the hotel with them, Mrs. Vance. And you need to come with me to the station. You’re named as an accessory on the breaking-and-entering warrant."
"No!" Olivia shrieked. "I’m not a criminal! Rebecca, tell him! We’re sisters! We’re blood!"
"Blood is a biological fact, Olivia," I said, looking her straight in the eyes. "It’s not a license to steal."
They led them out through the heavy fir doors into the blinding white light of the mountain morning.
Jason was crying now—ugly, silent tears that ran down his nose and dripped onto his sheepskin collar. Olivia didn't cry. When the deputy’s hand guided her head into the back of the cruiser, she looked at me through the tinted glass with an expression of pure, unadulterated venom. It was the face of a woman who had spent her entire life believing the world was an orchard planted specifically for her to harvest, now realizing she was locked outside the fence.
I stood on the courthouse steps as the cruisers pulled away, the chains on their tires clinking against the asphalt of Main Street.
Beside me, Sterling Henderson put on a pair of aviator sunglasses.
"I owe you an apology, Ms. Hart," he said quietly. "If Jason had managed to record that fraudulent paper, my group would have released three million dollars into his escrow account by noon today. You saved me a great deal of money and an incredible amount of embarrassment."
"I didn't do it for you, Mr. Henderson," I said. "I did it for my house."
He looked at me, a faint, genuine smile touching the corners of his mouth. "I know. If you ever decide you want to manage real commercial assets instead of personal lines insurance, call my office in Cherry Creek. We need people who know what a foundation is made of."
He handed me a heavy, engraved business card and walked down the steps toward his rented Suburban.
I stood alone in the cold for five minutes, watching the exhaust plumes from the town’s chimneys rise straight up into the still, frozen sky. The sun had finally cleared the rim of the canyon, flooding the red cliffs with a light so bright it hurt my eyes.
My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.
It was Diane.
May you like
I pulled it out, looked at the screen for three seconds, and then, for the first time in thirty-seven years, I pressed the red button and blocked the number.
***
