Chapter 3 - The Ghost of 1984
The dining room went dead silent.
Even Cordelia stopped smiling. She leaned back in her designer chair, her eyes darting between my father's weathered face and the manila envelope resting on the table.
Thaddius forced a harsh, nervous laugh, though his fingers began tapping frantically against the wood. "This is absurd. My family has owned the Vance Estate since before this county was even mapped. My grandfather built the west wing!"
"Your grandfather lost it to a tax lien during the farming crash," Dad said quietly, pulling out a single certified document from the folder and laying it flat under the chandelier light. "The county auctioned off the entire parcel in blocks. A local cooperative bought the North Acreage, and a private holding company bought the main house plot."
I stared at the paper, my breath catching in my throat. The municipal seal stamped at the bottom was unmistakable.
"And who bought the main house plot, Dad?" I whispered.
Dad looked up at me, a faint, proud smile touching the corners of his mouth. "I did, sweetheart. Through an anonymous trust, using the very first harvest profits I made after you graduated college. I bought the deed back, clear and clean, and I placed it in a separate trust."
Thaddius shot out of his chair so fast his mahogany dining chair tipped backward, crashing loudly against the hardwood floor.
"That's a lie!" Thaddius roared, his face turning a furious, mottled purple. "That house belongs to me! The deed is in my name! The county records say—"
"The county records were updated last month," a crisp, cool voice interrupted from the doorway of the dining room.
We all turned. Standing in the archway was Marcus Vance, Thaddius’s older cousin and the black sheep of the family who worked as a senior registrar at the county deeds office. He had arrived late, slipping into the house through the mudroom, holding a heavy leather briefcase.
Marcus looked around the table, taking in my mother's stained blouse, Cordelia's smug shock, and Eleanor's pale, rigid posture.
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"He's right, Thaddius," Marcus said, walking slowly toward the table and pulling out an identical certified document. "The estate you thought you owned? The multimillion-dollar asset Sara so generously signed over to you? The ground under this very dining table doesn't belong to the Vance family trust at all. It belongs entirely to Sara's father."
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