Chapter 8 - Confrontation at the Mercer Estate
The drive from Lemmon Avenue to Garland Road took fourteen frantic minutes. I broke two speed limits, ran a yellow light on Northwest Highway, and pulled into the alley behind the dry cleaner's with the Civic’s brakes squealing in protest.
I flew up the narrow wooden back stairs two at a time, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
The cheap plywood door to Apartment 2B was hanging open by a single brass hinge, the strike plate torn out of the drywall.
"Owen!" I shouted, kicking the door the rest of the way open.
The small living room was a disaster zone. The cushions from our second-hand sofa had been sliced open, the yellow foam spilling out onto the floor like breadcrumbs. Our school backpacks had been dumped on the kitchen table, their contents scattered—notebooks, pens, old receipts, Owen’s sheet music for his violin pieces trampled under dirty boot prints.
Owen was standing in the kitchen corner, holding a heavy iron frying pan with both hands, his chest heaving, his face white as chalk.
"They took the box, Will," Owen choked out, his voice shaking so badly he could barely form the words.
I stopped in the center of the room. "What box?"
"Mom's box," he whispered, pointing to the open closet where we kept our winter coats. "The metal firebox from the top shelf. The one with Mom's old tax returns and her handwritten journals."
My blood ran cold. "Who was it?"
"Two guys in dark jackets," Owen said, lowering the pan as his knees buckled slightly. He caught himself against the counter. "They had a key to the building's bottom door. When they kicked this door in, I was in the bathroom. I heard them tearing through the closet. One of them said, 'Check the high shelf, that’s where the Lakewood papers are.' When I came out with the pan, they shoved me into the wall and ran down the fire escape."
"Did they take Eleanor’s black notebook?"
Owen reached into his back pocket and pulled out the crumpled spiral notebook. "I had it on me. I was copying down the account numbers when they kicked the door."
I grabbed Owen by the shoulders, pulling him against me, checking his forehead where a dark, purple knot was already swelling near his hairline. "Are you hurt? Did they hit you?"
"Just shoved me," he said, trembling against my jacket. "Will... how did they know the box was here? How did they know what was inside?"
"Dad didn't know about that box," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a punch to the solar plexus. "Only Mom and I knew that was where she kept the real estate deeds from her parents' estate."
"Taryn," Owen said, his eyes wide with terror. "She’s trying to destroy the original deed to Grandma's house."
The Lakewood house.
Our mother had grown up in that house. When our grandfather died in 2018, the deed to the property was supposed to pass directly to Eleanor for her lifetime, with the remainder interest passing to Owen and me upon Eleanor's death. But when Mom got sick in 2022, Dad had mortgaged the Lakewood house to pay for the clinical trials in Houston.
Or so he had told us.
"Come on," I said, grabbing Owen's arm.
"Where are we going?"
"To Preston Hollow," I said. "We're not hiding over a dry cleaner's anymore."
Twenty minutes later, the Civic turned onto the quiet, oak-shaded canopy of Meadowood Drive—one of the wealthiest streets in Dallas.
The Mercer home was a sprawling, white-brick French provincial estate sitting behind ten-foot wrought-iron security gates. The gates were wide open. In the circular driveway sat a black Mercedes sedan with the trunk popped open, and two men in matching blue uniforms were carrying heavy wardrobe boxes down the stone front steps.
A moving crew.
I slammed the Civic into park directly behind the Mercedes, blocking it in.
Owen and I jumped out. Taryn was standing on the front porch, wearing a black trench coat, oversized sunglasses, and holding an iPad in a leather case. Beside her stood a man in an expensive navy suit with a leather briefcase—her cousin, Donald Vance, the divorce attorney.
When Taryn saw me coming up the lawn, she took off her sunglasses, her face hardening into an expression of pure, predatory hatred.
"You are trespassing on private property, Willa," she said, her voice carrying across the manicured lawn. "Leave immediately, or Donald will have the Highland Park police remove you in cuffs."
"Call them," I said, not slowing down until I was three feet from the bottom step, looking up at her. "Call the police, Taryn. Let's show them the crowbar marks on my apartment door in Garland. Let's see if the paint chips on the boots of those two movers you hired match the wood from my door frame."
Donald Vance stepped forward, holding up a palm. "Young lady, I suggest you lower your voice. Mrs. Mercer is executing an inventory of separate marital property under an emergency judicial order."
"Shut up, Donald," I said, turning my eyes back to Taryn. "You sent men into our home. You had them assault a sixteen-year-old boy to steal our dead mother’s papers."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Taryn sneered, though her knuckles turned white around the edge of the iPad. "You’re an unstable, vindictive child who has been trying to poison Reid against me since the day we got married. If your apartment was burglarized, that’s what happens when you insist on living in low-income housing with criminals."
"Where is the deed to the Lakewood house, Taryn?"
Taryn laughed—a sharp, ugly sound that echoed off the limestone facade. "The Lakewood house was sold eighteen months ago, Willa. Did Reid not tell you? Of course he didn't. He didn't have the courage. He sold the Lakewood property to Vanguard Heritage LLC for four hundred thousand dollars below market value to fund his commercial partnership."
Owen gasped beside me. "Grandma’s house?"
"That house was Eleanor’s!" I shouted. "The life estate was recorded in Dallas County!"
"It was recorded incorrectly," Donald Vance interjected smoothly, pulling a document from his briefcase. "Your mother failed to file the secondary probate affidavit after your grandfather passed. When Reid executed the power of attorney for Eleanor last year, he had the legal authority to convey the full fee-simple title to Vanguard Heritage. That property was collateralized for a commercial loan four months ago. The equity from that loan paid for Paisley's schooling, paid for the improvements on this house, and paid for the lifestyle your father was too pathetic to provide on his own."
I looked at Taryn. She stood there on the steps of that multi-million-dollar mansion, looking down at us like we were vermin that had crawled out of the storm drains.
"You didn't just steal Grandma's care money," I whispered, the full, grotesque scope of her scheme finally lying bare before me. "You stole her home. You stole the only thing Mom had left to give us."
"This is business, Willa," Taryn said, sliding her sunglasses back over her eyes. "Your mother was a weak, sentimental woman who died broke. Your grandmother is an old woman who should have been put in a nursing home five years ago. And you... you’re just a dishwasher with a loud mouth."
"She’s not just a dishwasher," a voice boomed from the driveway.
A second car had pulled up behind my Civic—a battered Ford F-150 pickup.
The driver’s door swung open, and Reid Mercer stepped out. But he wasn't alone.
May you like
Beside him, stepping down from the passenger side with a thick manila folder under his arm, was Julian Croft from Park Place Motorcars—and two uniformed officers from the University Park Police Department.
***
