Chapter 4: First Moves
I did not confront them directly that day.
Instead I let the official process begin to close around them.
Adult Protective Services opened a case by early afternoon. A social worker visited my father at the hospital and took a detailed statement. The hospital security footage from the previous weeks—showing Priscilla’s increasingly frequent and agitated visits—was preserved. The baseball bat was recovered from Derek’s garage with the help of a local detective who understood the value of doing things by the book when a federal agent was involved.
I also pulled the financial records I still had access to as a listed emergency contact on several of my father’s accounts. Large withdrawals had begun appearing three months earlier—always after Priscilla’s visits. Transfers to accounts I didn’t recognize. Cash advances. A sudden attempt to add her name as a joint holder on one of the larger savings accounts that my father had refused to sign.
The pattern was no longer just emotional or physical.
It was financial.
That evening I sat beside my father’s hospital bed and explained everything in calm, practical terms. He listened with the quiet dignity of a man who had spent his life solving problems with his hands rather than paperwork.
“I never thought Derek would go along with it,” he said.
“He didn’t stop it,” I answered. “That’s enough.”
Before I left for the night, I made one final call—to a family law attorney who specialized in emergency guardianship and elder protection orders. By morning we would have a temporary restraining order barring both Priscilla and Derek from any contact with my father or his finances.
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They had wanted him declared incompetent so they could take control.
I was going to make sure the only people declared dangerous were the ones who had brought the bat.
