Chapter 6 - The Sheriff's Warrant
The phone stayed pressed against my ear, the tinny sound of my mother's breath echoing against the quiet hum of the county archive basement.
"A warrant," I said, my voice dropping into a calm, measured register that had kept me alive in worse rooms than this. "For what, Mother? Attempting to recover documents from a property where I am legally listed as a primary trust beneficiary?"
"The charge is illegal entry and destruction of property," she replied smoothly, her confidence unshakeable now that she had a badge standing beside her. "You haven't lived in that house for two years. You abandoned your occupancy rights when you deployed, and according to the quitclaim deed currently filed with the county clerk, you transferred all rights of habitation to me. The local magistrate didn't hesitate to sign off once the sheriff explained that an estranged, volatile military veteran was terrorizing an elderly homeowner."
Daniel had stopped packing his laptop. He was staring at me, his eyes wide with silent warning, shaking his head. Don't walk into it, his expression said. Let's handle this through federal jurisdiction.
"Tell the sheriff to wait right there," I said.
"Oh, he's not waiting, Christian. He's dispatching a unit to the hospital to check on Elena, and another car is headed right down to the municipal archives. They ran your truck's plates when you parked outside."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
I lowered the phone slowly, looking down at the heavy wooden table where the expired notary stamp and the fraudulent corporate resolutions lay scattered among the dust.
"She's weaponizing the local department," Daniel said, slamming his laptop shut and shoving it into his leather case. "We need to bypass the county sheriff entirely. I'm calling the state police barracks and the district attorney's economic crimes division. If Diane filed a false police report while executing a fraudulent land transfer, that escalates this from a civil property dispute straight into felony conspiracy."
"No," I said, standing up and buttoning my jacket. "If we run to the state police now, she controls the narrative at the house for another twelve hours. She’ll use the time to finish tearing apart the pantry, or worse, destroy whatever else my father left behind."
"Christian, if you walk out of here and a local deputy slaps cuffs on you based on an active warrant, you'll spend twenty-four hours in a holding cell while your mother rewrites every probate document in the county."
May you like
"They won't slap cuffs on me," I said, grabbing the manila folder containing the fraudulent corporate resolutions and Martha Higgins's expired license registry. "Because we aren't going to hide. We're going to meet them on our own terms."
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