Chapter 5 - The Emergency at Oak Creek
For five days, the silence from my family was absolute. It was the predictable, manipulative silence of people who believed they were punishing me. Evelyn had used the silent treatment on me when I was seven, twelve, and twenty. She believed that if she starved me of her approval long enough, I would come crawling back on my knees, checkbook in hand, begging for forgiveness.
She didn't realize that this time, I wasn't locked in my childhood bedroom waiting for her mercy. I was twenty floors above the city, running multi-million-dollar supply chain operations and sleeping nine uninterrupted hours a night.
The silence shattered on Thursday morning.
I was in the middle of a high-stakes executive conference call with our European logistics partners when my administrative assistant, Brenda, tapped on my glass office door. She looked uneasy.
I muted my headset. "Brenda, I’m in the middle of the Rotterdam briefing."
"I know, Naomi, I’m so sorry," Brenda whispered, holding a blinking desk phone receiver. "There’s a woman on line three claiming to be your mother. She says it’s an extreme domestic emergency and that if I don’t put her through immediately, she’s going to call the local news and the police to report corporate endangerment."
I closed my eyes, took a deep, measured breath, and felt the ice return to my veins. "Thank you, Brenda. Route it to my direct line and close the door."
I unmuted my headset, apologized to the Rotterdam team, handed the briefing over to my deputy director, and disconnected.
I picked up line three. "You have sixty seconds, Evelyn."
"Naomi! How dare you instruct your receptionist to screen my calls!" Evelyn’s voice wasn't just angry; it was shrill, frayed around the edges, running on pure panic. "The basement is flooded!"
I remained silent.
"Did you hear me?!" she shrieked. "The septic pump failed! There is three inches of black water in the finished basement! Derek’s entire collection of vintage records is down there! The smell is coming through the floorboards into the kitchen! Call the plumbing company you used last October and have them come out right now!"
"The septic pump didn't fail on its own," I said, checking my fingernails. "I had a commercial maintenance contract on that system. It required an eighty-dollar monthly service retainer. When I canceled my debit card, that contract lapsed. You’ll have to call them yourself."
"We did call them!" Evelyn shouted, background noises of children screaming and a shop-vac whining hysterically filtering through the phone. "They said there is a three-hundred-dollar emergency dispatch fee, plus parts and labor! They want a credit card over the phone before they’ll even send a truck! Arthur’s card was declined!"
"Then use Derek’s card," I said smoothly. "He’s the man of the house."
A momentary, suffocating pause hung on the line. Then Evelyn’s voice turned into a desperate, furious hiss. "Derek’s accounts are currently frozen due to the divorce proceedings! You know that! His spiteful ex-wife has tied up his liquidity! He doesn't have three hundred dollars right now!"
"Then I suggest you buy a mop, Evelyn."
"Naomi Ruth! Your father has heart palpitations! He is sitting on the stairs with his nitro pills because of the stress you are causing this family! If anything happens to your father, his blood will be on your hands! You wire five thousand dollars to my checking account right now so we can fix this basement and pay the neighborhood fees! Do you hear me?!"
"I hear a woman who called me a parasite five days ago," I replied, my voice dropping an octave into pure, lethal calmness. "A parasite feeds on a host without giving anything in return. I fed this family eighty-four thousand dollars in three years. You told me Derek needed this house to feel like a man. Let him be a man. Let him fix your basement."
"You heartless, selfish bitch!" she wailed.
"If you ever call my workplace again, Evelyn," I said, "I will file a formal workplace harassment injunction against you with the Cook County Sheriff. Do not test me."
I slammed the receiver down onto the cradle.
My heart was racing, but not with fear. With adrenaline.
Ten minutes later, my personal phone buzzed. It was a text from Derek.
*“You think you’re so smart. You think you can starve us out? Mom and Dad are signing the deed over to me next week. I’m taking out an equity loan against the house. We’re going to pull out two hundred grand, remodel the whole place, and cut you out of the will completely. Have fun dying alone in your sterile apartment, you miserable corporate robot.”*
I stared at the message. A slow, chilling smile touched my lips.
*Taking out an equity loan against the house.*
They truly didn't know.
Dad had kept the secret to his grave. He had been so terrified of Evelyn discovering his financial incompetence that he had never told her—or Derek—about the Second Deed of Trust and the Equitable Lien I held against the title.
They couldn't borrow a single penny against that property without my written signature as the primary lienholder.
I picked up my phone and called Sophie. "Sophie? Derek just told me they’re applying for a cash-out equity loan on Sycamore Crest."
On the other end of the line, Sophie burst into a roar of laughter so loud it made me pull the phone away from my ear.
"Oh, this is delicious," Sophie gasped. "They’re going to walk right into a commercial bank, pay a five-hundred-dollar appraisal fee, submit their application, and trigger a comprehensive title search. Naomi... do you know what happens the second the title company runs the lien registry?"
"Tell me."
"The title company will flag an active ninety-six thousand dollar encumbrance with a pending acceleration clause. And because they missed the municipal property tax deadline yesterday—which I’ve been tracking on the county portal—the acceleration clause is officially triggered."
Sophie paused, her voice turning razor-sharp.
May you like
"The full ninety-six thousand dollars is due in thirty days, Naomi. If they don't pay you in cash, we have the legal right to force a judicial foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps."
***
