Chapter 9 - The Eviction Notice
When the sirens began to wail in the distance, Caleb was the first one to break.
He didn't try to help Beatrice, who was hobbling on one broken heel against the gravel. He didn't check on Maya, who had collapsed onto the hood of the rental car, hyperventilating.
Caleb sprinted to the driver’s seat, ripped the door open, and jammed the key into the ignition.
"Caleb!" Beatrice shrieked, lunging toward the car. "Don't you dare leave me here! Caleb!"
"Get in! Get in right now!" Caleb screamed, the engine whining as he redlined it in park. "The cops are coming! If I get another citation my probation from college gets revoked! GET IN!"
Beatrice scrambled into the back seat like a feral dog, tumbling over the cheap upholstery. Maya barely managed to pull her legs inside before Caleb threw the Hyundai into reverse, whipping the car around in a chaotic spray of dirt and shale.
They didn't get fifty yards.
At the narrow bottleneck where the private road met the county access trail, two Eagle County Sheriff SUVs pulled diagonally across the gravel, blocking the path entirely. A third cruiser slid in behind them, boxing the smoking Hyundai into the ditch.
I watched the entire scene play out on my four-split security monitor, zooming in with forty-times optical clarity.
Three deputies stepped out with their hands resting on their holsters.
Caleb didn't even wait for them to approach. He threw his hands out the window, screaming, "I wasn't driving fast! We’re leaving! We were just visiting family!"
The lead deputy—a square-jawed veteran named Sergeant Miller—ignored Caleb entirely. He walked straight past the driver’s side and tapped heavily on the rear passenger window with a heavy metal flashlight.
Beatrice rolled the window down two inches, her face pale as parchment.
"Officer," she said, her voice shaking violently as she attempted one last, pathetic aristocratic smile. "Officer, thank heavens you’re here. My daughter is having a severe psychological episode inside that compound. She’s threatening us, she’s—"
"Beatrice Vance?" Sergeant Miller asked, cutting her off without blinking.
"Yes, but—"
"Step out of the vehicle, ma'am."
"Excuse me?!" Beatrice gasped. "I am a resident of Cherry Hills! I am the victim here! My daughter—"
"Step out of the vehicle right now, Ms. Vance, or I will remove you," Miller said, his hand moving to his belt. "You have two active warrants out of Eagle County District Court."
Maya let out a high-pitched, animalistic shriek from the front seat. "Warrants?! For what?!"
Miller opened the door from the outside, took Beatrice firmly by the upper arm, and pulled her out onto the gravel road.
"Warrant one," Miller recited as he turned Beatrice around and pushed her chest against the rear quarter panel of the rental car, "felony assault with a deadly weapon resulting in severe bodily injury. Warrant two, felony reckless endangerment."
*Click. Click.*
The heavy chrome handcuffs snapped shut around Beatrice’s frail, manicured wrists.
"No! No!" Beatrice screamed, her voice echoing through the pine valley loud enough to scare a flock of crows from the trees. "It was coffee! It was just a cup of coffee! You can’t arrest me for coffee! Clara! CLARA! Tell them! Tell them to take these off me!"
From the front seat, Caleb was furiously filming the arrest with his phone, his eyes manic. "Mom, don't say anything! I’m getting this! I’m getting the police brutality on camera! We can sue! We can sue the county!"
A second deputy stepped up to Caleb’s window, ripped the phone out of his hand, and tossed it onto the dashboard. "Step out of the car, son. You're being detained as a person of interest in a felony conspiracy investigation."
"What conspiracy?!" Caleb cried, his voice breaking into hysterical sobs as he was hauled out onto the dirt. "I didn't pour it! Maya filmed it! Maya held the phone! It was Maya’s idea!"
"You coward!" Maya shrieked from inside the car, lunging across the console to claw at the back of Caleb’s neck. "You lying piece of trash! You told Mom to do it! You said it would make us go viral!"
They fought like animals right there in the dirt.
Caleb was on his knees, screaming curses at his sister. Maya was sobbing into the patrol car’s hood. And Beatrice was thrashing against Sergeant Miller’s grip, her broken shoe slipping in the dust, her hair flying across her face in wild, silver tangles.
I stood behind the double-paned, bulletproof glass of my compound, holding the cup of tea that had long since gone cold.
There was no victory in the sight.
Only an immense, quiet emptiness.
This was the family that had demanded I shrink myself for twenty-six years so they wouldn't feel small. This was the family that had demanded I apologize for having a brain, for wanting more than debt and drama and digital applause.
They hadn't loved me when I had nothing.
And their hatred now that I had everything was pure, unadulterated poison.
May you like
I turned my back on the monitor and walked into my server room to finalize the wire transfers that would ensure they stayed exactly where they belonged: facing the consequences of their own choices.
***
