Chapter 3 - The Ghost of the Past
The rain outside the diner had turned into a steady, gray deluge, blurring the neon lights of 4th Street into smears of red and yellow. Abigail stared at the manila folder on the table, the forged signatures on the property lien seeming to mock every sacrifice she had made over the last thirty-four years.
“He didn't know about the lottery,” Abigail murmured, speaking more to herself than to Naomi.
“What did you say?” Naomi asked, wiping her eyes with a paper napkin.
“Nothing,” Abigail replied quickly, pulling her thoughts back from the edge. She couldn't tell Naomi about the twenty million dollars. Not yet. In a world where her own son was forging her signature to hand her home over to loan sharks, trust was a luxury she could no longer afford. “Naomi, tell me everything you know about these loans. Who holds the paper?”
Naomi opened the folder to a yellowed ledger page. “A man named Viktor Vance. No relation to me, obviously. He runs a private lending firm out of the industrial district called Vance Capital. But everyone in the underworld knows it’s just a front for loan sharking and asset seizure.”
Abigail’s heart skipped a beat. Vance Capital. The name sounded vaguely familiar, dragging up a dusty memory from years ago—a name her late husband, Thomas, had muttered in his sleep during the final months of his life when his own small carpentry business had collapsed under mysterious circumstances.
“Thomas...” Abigail whispered.
“What was that?” Naomi asked.
“Nothing. Just... a ghost,” Abigail shook her head, pushing the thought aside. “How much does Spencer owe this Viktor man?”
Naomi swallowed hard, pointing to a red-inked balance sheet at the bottom of the page. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Principal and compounding weekly interest. And Viktor doesn't wait for court dates, Mrs. Riley. His men collect with baseball bats and eviction notices.”
Abigail looked at the numbers. Two hundred and fifty thousand. Pocket change compared to the twenty million sitting inside her dictionary at home. But that wasn't the point. If she paid it off quietly, Spencer would learn nothing. He would take the money, smile his charming smile, and move on to the next scam, leaving her dry, homeless, and discarded.
“He’s not sick, is he?” Abigail asked suddenly, the realization dawning on her with sickening clarity. “At the hospital. The heart monitors, the oxygen tubes, the pale skin... it was all an act.”
“Mostly,” Naomi admitted bitterly. “He paid a medical student we know to help him fake the initial cardiac arrhythmia symptoms using a portable heart-rate modifier. The doctors are kept in the dark because Spencer’s charm convinces them it’s an atypical presentation of a rare condition. He loves the drama of it. It’s his favorite performance.”
Abigail leaned back against the hard plastic booth, feeling a cold numbness wash over her. Thirty-four years of raising an only child, protecting him after his father died, working double shifts at the dry cleaner’s, denying herself shoes, coats, and proper meals—all of it spent feeding a black hole that had no bottom.
“He thinks I’m weak,” Abigail said softly, her voice devoid of tears now. Only a hard, sharp resolve remained.
“What are you going to do?” Naomi asked, her eyes wide with apprehension. “If Viktor finds out we’re exposing this, they’ll come after both of us.”
“Let them come,” Abigail said, sliding the manila folder into her own leather bag. “For thirty-four years, I protected Spencer from the consequences of his actions. I thought I was being a good mother. Tonight, I realize I was just an accomplice to a monster.”
She pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and dropped it onto the table to cover Naomi’s coffee.
“Go home, Naomi. Lock your doors, pack a bag, and stay with a friend out of town. This is about to get very ugly.”
“Mrs. Riley, wait—what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go visit my son,” Abigail said, a chilling smile touching the corners of her lips. “And this time, I’m not bringing my checkbook.”
She turned and walked out of the diner into the pouring rain, leaving Naomi staring after her in stunned silence.
Instead of driving back to Independencia, Abigail pointed her old sedan toward St. Jude Community Hospital. The digital dashboard clock read 11:45 PM.
When she reached the hospital, the parking lot was nearly empty. She bypassed the front desk entirely, taking the service elevator up to the third floor where the private VIP rooms were located—rooms paid for by her own pawned jewelry and maxed-out credit cards.
She walked down the carpeted hallway until she reached Room 12.
The door was unlocked, just a fraction open.
Inside, the harsh white hospital lights had been dimmed. Spencer was no longer lying flat in the bed with oxygen tubes taped to his face.
Instead, he was sitting up against a pile of pillows, wearing a silk designer bathrobe, happily tossing a stress ball against the opposite wall while chatting loudly on his cell phone.
“I’m telling you, bro, the old lady is cracking,” Spencer laughed into the phone, his voice carrying clearly through the crack in the door. “She’s totally wrapped around my finger. Once she liquidates that last rental property in the east end, we’ll have enough cash to clear the debt with Viktor and book a one-way ticket to Cabo before the heat catches up.”
Abigail stood motionless in the hallway shadows.
She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out her phone, and dialed a number she had never thought she would need to call.
A sharp, professional voice answered on the second ring.
May you like
“Vance & Associates Legal Counsel. How may I direct your call?”
“Yes,” Abigail said clearly, her eyes locked on the crack in the hospital door where her son was laughing about selling her home. “I need to retain an attorney specializing in corporate fraud, asset recovery, and criminal conspiracy. My name is Abigail Riley. And I have twenty million dollars to fund the prosecution.”
