“Honey, I need to tell you something,” her voice was taut, vibrating with suppressed panic. “Your parents are three months delinquent on the mortgage. The bank just issued a final notice.”
I slumped against the sterile, mint-green hospital wall. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough that the sheriff could be locking their doors by July,” she replied.
“Does Vivien know?”
“Vivien told them she was handling it,” Martha scoffed bitterly. “But I haven’t seen a single bank transfer clear, and your father is too proud to admit he’s drowning.”
That night, I sat in my darkened apartment and stared at a water stain on the ceiling for an hour. Then, I dialed First National in Harden. I navigated the labyrinth of automated menus until I reached a man named Dave Keller, the residential mortgage manager. His voice was calm, a balm to my frantic pulse. I identified myself and inquired about the Mitchell account.
He confirmed my worst fears: three months in arrears, foreclosure protocols initiated. Then, he delivered a piece of information that made the blood freeze in my veins.
“Actually, someone else called last week claiming to be a daughter,” Dave noted, flipping through digital files. “She promised to take care of the balance. But she never followed up with a single dime.”
I knew exactly who had orchestrated that phantom rescue. Vivien had swooped in, soaked up the desperate gratitude of a promise, and then vanished when the bill arrived. That was the exact second I realized my sister wasn’t merely negligent. She was a predator.
I instructed Dave to establish an automatic withdrawal from my checking account. Monthly. Untraceable.
