Chapter 9: The Part He Didn't Plan For
Arthur was found three days later.
Not hiding.
Not fleeing.
Sitting in a hotel bar in Philadelphia, forty minutes from his mother's house, nursing a drink and waiting — Patricia's contact at the U.S.
Attorney's office told me — as though he expected someone to come and negotiate.
Nobody came to negotiate.
I was in a meeting when Patricia called.
I stepped into the hallway to take it.
"They executed the warrant this morning," she said.
"His attorney is already asking for a continuance."
"Did they get the server records?"
"All of it.
His laptop, his phone, and a secondary device registered to the Voss entity.
Renata Voss was taken in for questioning in Newark this morning.
She's cooperating."
I looked through the glass at my colleagues waiting inside.
"And the farmhouse?"
"The transfer has been formally voided.
The backdated instrument has been flagged and referred to the state bar — the attorney who drafted it is facing a separate inquiry." Patricia paused.
"The $250,000 is frozen pending the fraud investigation.
Your father's bank has been notified.
The loan is being treated as fraudulently induced, which means your father has no legal obligation to repay it."
I pressed my hand flat against the wall.
"His land."
"His land," Patricia confirmed.
"All of it.
The house, the farm, the parcel." A pause.
"The parcel where your mother is buried."
I didn't say anything for a moment.
"Genevieve.
It's done."
"I know," I said.
"Tell me when he's formally charged."
"I will," Patricia said.
"It'll be today."
I thanked her and hung up.
I stood in the hallway for another moment.
Through the glass, my colleagues were checking their phones, refilling coffee, waiting patiently.
Normal things.
Ordinary things.
I went back inside.
I did not tell them what the call had been about.
I sat down, picked up where we had left off, and finished the meeting.
Arthur's name appeared in the financial news on a Thursday.
A short item, factual, naming the charges: wire fraud, property fraud, fraudulent use of a power of attorney, conspiracy.
Renata Voss named as a co-defendant.
I read the first paragraph and set my phone face-down on my desk.
I didn't read the rest.
I didn't need to.
Olivia called that evening.
I let it ring twice before I answered.
"I saw the news," she said.
"Yes."
A long pause.
"I want you to know — I had no idea about the other women.
About any of it."
"I believe you, Olivia."
"I'm sorry.
For the years of — I'm sorry for how I treated your father.
How I let Chloe treat him." Her voice was unsteady.
"He's a good man.
He didn't deserve any of this."
"No," I said.
"He didn't."
Another pause.
"Will you tell him I said so?"
"I will."
She didn't say anything else.
Neither did I.
After a moment, she hung up.
I sat with the phone in my hand.
Then I called my father.
He picked up on the second ring, the way he always did, as though he had been waiting.
"It's done, Dad," I said.
"The land is yours.
All of it."
Silence on his end.
Long enough that I said his name.
"I'm here," he said.
His voice was rough.
"I'm here, sweetheart."
"You're going to get a call from Patricia's office tomorrow with the formal paperwork.
But I wanted you to hear it from me first."
"Your mother's land," he said.
"Yes."
He didn't say anything else for a while.
I didn't either.
I just stayed on the line with him, listening to the quiet of the Pennsylvania evening on his end — the sound of the farm settling into night, the way it always had.
"Thank you," he finally said.
"You don't have to thank me."
May you like
"I know I don't have to." A pause.
"I'm doing it anyway."
