Chapter 10: The Next Layer
Two days after the hearing, the private investigator I had hired delivered his first full report.
Priscilla had been meeting regularly with a financial advisor who specialized in “senior asset transitions.” She had also researched long-term care facilities that accepted emergency placements based on family petitions. Most damning of all, the investigator had obtained security footage from a storage facility where she had rented a unit three months earlier. Inside were boxes of my father’s original financial records—statements, deeds, insurance policies—removed from his house without his knowledge.
I watched the footage twice.
Then I called the detective and the assistant U.S. attorney.
The case was no longer just about a single night and a baseball bat.
It was a sustained campaign of isolation, intimidation, and theft.
That evening I sat beside my father’s bed and told him everything. He listened without interrupting. When I finished, he reached over and squeezed my hand with surprising strength.
“Do what you have to do,” he said. “I’m done protecting people who never protected me.”
I nodded.
Outside the hospital window, the city lights flickered on one by one.
Inside, the last of my hesitation disappeared.
May you like
Priscilla and Derek had started this by trying to erase my father’s voice.
I was going to make sure the record kept every word.
