Chapter 3 - THE RAT RACES FOR COVER
"This is ridiculous!" Regina shrieked, her regal composure completely collapsing. "Oscar, call the attorney right now! Call Julian!"
"Julian isn't answering his phone, Mom," Oscar panicked, staring at his screen with wide, bloodshot eyes. "He... he messaged me two minutes ago. The District Attorney's office served a warrant at his legal firm twenty minutes ago!"
The lead police officer stepped up, taking a pair of handcuffs from his belt. "Oscar Vance, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit real estate fraud, forgery, and grand larceny."
"Wait! No! You can't arrest me!" Oscar screamed, flailing as the officer pulled his arms behind his back. "Lucy! Tell them! Tell them it's a mistake! I'm the father of your baby!"
Lucy looked at him. For the first time since I found her shivering outside the emergency room, there was no fear in her eyes. There was only a cold, impenetrable wall of disgust.
"You aren't a father, Oscar," she said softly. "You're a parasite."
As the officers hauled a kicking and screaming Oscar into the back of the patrol car, Regina turned her rage toward Lucy. "You think you've won, you ungrateful little orphan?!" she spat, her face twisted in ugly fury. "You have nothing! My lawyers will tear you apart in custody court! You'll never see that boy again!"
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Mrs. Vance," Mr. Medina interjected, handing her a fresh stack of court papers. "This is an emergency restraining order signed by a superior court judge. You, Oscar, and any member of the Vance family are legally prohibited from coming within one thousand feet of Lucy or her son. If you approach them, you will be jailed instantly without bail."
Regina grabbed the papers, her knuckles turning white, but before she could speak, her phone rang.
She picked it up with a shaking hand, putting it on speaker in her panic.
"Mom!" Julian’s panicked voice blasted through the phone speaker for everyone on the sidewalk to hear. "Don't go near the apartment! The fraud unit found the offshore account! They know about the wire transfers from Patricia’s property and Lucy’s estate! They're freezing all our assets right now!"
Regina froze. The phone slowly slid down her face.
The web of crime they had spent years weaving—stealing from vulnerable, pregnant women to fund their lavish lifestyle—was unravelling in broad daylight.
"My money..." Regina whispered, looking around at the icy street as if waking up from a dream. "My accounts..."
"Your money is gone, Regina," I said, stepping between her and Lucy. "Just like your control over my niece."
"Uncle Ray," Lucy said, touching my arm lightly. "Let's go inside. I want to clear this garbage off my sidewalk."
We left Regina standing alone in the freezing Denver wind, surrounded by the black trash bags she had thrown out, staring at the flashing red and blue lights of the police cruiser taking her son away.
But as we walked up the stairs to Lucy’s apartment, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a text from an unknown, encrypted number.
I opened it.
May you like
You think you caught the big fish, Raymond? Oscar and Regina were just the front. If you don't drop the charges by midnight, Lucy’s medical records from her time in the ICU will be leaked to every news outlet in Colorado. Let's see how long she keeps her baby when the world finds out what really happened to her mother fifteen years ago.
My blood ran colder than the air outside. There was a deeper, darker secret hidden within Lucy’s past—one even I didn't know about.
