Chapter 3 - THE POLICIES OF BETRAYAL
The silence in my foyer was so absolute I could hear the rhythmic, heavy ticking of Grandma Evelyn’s grandfather clock through my phone’s speaker.
Jessica stared at the life insurance policy in her hands, her designer sunglasses pushed back into her blonde hair. Her eyes darted from the paper to my father, then to my mother, searching for the punchline to a joke she didn't understand.
“Mom?” Jessica asked, her voice small, suddenly sounding more like a frightened child than the entitled woman who had just ordered movers to conquer my home. “What is this?”
My mother stepped forward, her heels crunching on the ice from Jessica’s spilled coffee. She snatched the document out of her daughter’s hands.
“It’s nothing, sweetheart,” Patricia said, her voice dripping with a forced, sugary sweetness that made my skin crawl. “It’s just family estate planning. Lauren knows all about it.”
“I absolutely do not,” my voice echoed sharply through the camera speakers.
The two police officers immediately stepped between my parents and my sister. Detective Miller walked through the open front door, flashing his badge. He looked at the paperwork in my mother’s hand.
“Ma'am, I'm going to need to see that document,” Miller said quietly.
“This is a private family matter!” my father barked, his face flushing a deep, angry crimson. “You have no right to barge in here! My daughter is going through a mental health crisis. She’s paranoid. We were just trying to secure her assets while she receives treatment!”
I gripped the steering wheel of my car, my knuckles turning white. The sheer audacity of his lie was breathtaking. They weren't just trying to steal my house; they were building a narrative to have me declared legally incompetent.
I didn't wait another second. I threw my car into drive and sped out of the boutique hotel parking lot.
The drive took exactly eight minutes. Eight minutes of my heart hammering against my ribs. Eight minutes of replaying every “accidental” injury, every strange illness, every time my mother had insisted on bringing me homemade soup when I felt under the weather over the last few months.
Why do they have a three-million-dollar policy on my life?
When I pulled into my circular driveway, the moving truck was still idling. The movers were sitting on the tailgate, smoking cigarettes and looking incredibly uncomfortable.
I slammed my car door and marched up the front steps.
I walked into my own home.
Jessica gasped when she saw me. “Lauren! You’re not in London!”
“No, Jess. I’m right here,” I said, not taking my eyes off my parents.
My father tried to physically block Detective Miller from reading the insurance policy, but the detective easily sidestepped him. Miller scanned the document, his eyebrows rising toward his hairline.
“Ms. Hastings,” Detective Miller said, looking at me. “Were you aware that your parents took out this policy on you fifteen years ago?”
I froze. “Fifteen years ago? I was barely in college.”
“The original policy was established then,” Miller continued, his eyes locked on my father. “But an amendment was filed forty-eight hours ago. The beneficiary was changed from Thomas and Patricia Hastings... to Jessica Hastings.”
“They told me you were dying!” Jessica suddenly screamed, bursting into tears.
Everyone in the room turned to look at her.
Jessica’s hands were shaking violently. She looked at me, her mascara running down her cheeks. “Mom and Dad came to my apartment on Tuesday. They said you had stage-four pancreatic cancer. They said you didn't want anyone to know, and that you were going to London for an experimental treatment.”
My jaw dropped.
“They said you wanted me to have the house,” Jessica sobbed, pointing a shaking finger at our mother. “They said you wanted my kids to grow up here so part of your legacy would live on. They said you changed the insurance so I wouldn't have to struggle anymore!”
I stared at Jessica. For my entire life, I had believed she was the mastermind of her own entitlement. I believed she happily manipulated our parents into stealing from me.
But looking at her now, seeing the genuine, visceral horror on her face, I realized a terrifying truth.
Jessica wasn't the mastermind. She was just the weapon they used to hurt me.
“Is this true, Mom?” I asked, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Did you tell her I was dying?”
Patricia lifted her chin, her eyes cold and defiant. “We did what we had to do. You were being selfish. You have a massive house you don't need, and your sister is living in a two-bedroom apartment with her children. You should have offered it to her!”
“So you forged my signature on a property transfer, faked a terminal illness, and changed my life insurance beneficiary?” I demanded.
“The insurance is for the family trust!” my father yelled. “It’s standard asset protection!”
“Actually, it’s not,” Detective Miller interrupted. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his own pocket—a background check he had run this morning. “Thomas, according to public records, you and your wife filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy two weeks ago. You don't have a family trust. You have three million dollars in unpayable debt.”
Jessica gasped, stumbling backward against the wall. “You’re bankrupt? But... you just gave me fifty thousand dollars to start my new catering business.”
“No, Jessica,” I said softly, the puzzle pieces finally locking together. “They didn't give you fifty thousand dollars. They took it.”
Suddenly, the heavy oak door leading to the kitchen swung open.
Jessica’s five-year-old daughter, Mia, wandered into the foyer. She was wearing her favorite pink overalls, holding something shiny in her small hands.
“Mommy,” Mia said innocently, oblivious to the police officers and the screaming adults. “I found the ticking man in the wall.”
She held out her hand.
Resting in her small palm was an antique, tarnished silver pocket watch.
I stopped breathing.
It was Grandma Evelyn’s husband’s watch. The watch she had explicitly told me was stolen in a burglary thirty years ago.
“Mia,” my mother barked, panic suddenly replacing her arrogance. “Put that down right now!”
But I was faster. I knelt down and gently took the watch from my niece. It was heavy, the glass cracked, but I could hear it ticking faintly.
I pressed the small latch on the side. The watch sprung open.
There wasn't a clock face inside.
There was a tightly folded, yellowed photograph.
I pulled it out and unfolded it.
It was a picture of my mother, Patricia. But she was young, maybe twenty. She was standing in front of this exact mansion, holding a baby.
Only, the baby wasn't me. And it wasn't Jessica.
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Written on the back of the photo, in Grandma Evelyn’s unmistakable handwriting, were three words:
Where is he?
