Chapter 1 - TWENTY MINUTESThe first punch broke my rib.
I didn't know that yet.
All I knew was that Marcus's fist drove into my right side and something deep beneath my breast seemed to fold inward.
My knees hit the kitchen floor.
Three apples rolled from the overturned fruit bowl. One disappeared beneath the refrigerator. Another stopped beside a broken wineglass.
Rachel stood behind her brother in a cream jumpsuit, pointing at me as if I were the criminal.
“Give us the money!”
I couldn't breathe enough to answer.
Marcus still had one hand around my upper arm.
My oldest son was forty-two years old.
When he was seven, he'd once carried an injured sparrow half a mile home because he couldn't stand the thought of it dying alone.
Now he tightened his fingers around my bruised arm.
“You owe us everything.”
He hauled me halfway upright.
Then shoved me down again.
My palm slid through spilled water and glass.
Three days earlier, I'd sold the last major tract of Sterling Ridge Farm, the 214-acre Tennessee property outside Franklin where Marcus and Rachel had grown up.
The closing statement showed just over three million dollars coming to me after the remaining farm debt, closing costs, and adjustments.
Marcus knew the number.
Rachel knew it too.
What they didn't know was what I planned to do with it.
And apparently they were willing to beat the answer out of me.
Rachel stepped closer.
“Dad said that farm was ours.”
“Your father said many things.”
She kicked one of the apples.
“Don't you dare talk about him like that.”
Marcus jerked me up again.
I looked at my son and, for the first time in my life, became genuinely afraid he might kill me by accident.
Not because he wanted me dead.
Because he was too angry to notice how old I was.
I grabbed his wrist.
Maybe he wasn't expecting me to fight.
Maybe seventy-two looked helpless to him.
I tore his hand away and shoved.
He stumbled backward one step.
“You get nothing.”
Rachel's face twisted.
Marcus straightened slowly.
Then something strange happened.
His anger disappeared.
He reached inside his suit jacket and removed a folded document.
“I was hoping you wouldn't make us use this.”
He opened it.
At the top were the words:
DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY.
My name appeared beneath them.
So did Marcus's.
I stared.
I'd never signed it.
Rachel smiled again.
“Twenty minutes.”
Marcus laid the document on the kitchen island.
“Choose.”
“Choose what?”
“You transfer the money voluntarily, or I use this.”
My lip tasted like blood.
Marcus continued.
“Three equal accounts. One for you. One for me. One for Rachel.”
Rachel snapped, “No. Mom keeps enough for the house. That's it.”
Even Marcus looked at her.
That disagreement told me something.
They had not planned every detail together.
Good.
People who didn't entirely trust each other made mistakes.
I lowered my eyes.
Not toward the document.
Toward the pantry door.
Above it was a small black security camera.
Marcus had installed it himself six months earlier after somebody broke into a neighbor's garage.
He'd teased me for insisting that the kitchen camera remain active.
“Who's stealing your oatmeal, Mom?”
He had forgotten one thing.
I hadn't.
The camera recorded audio.
And three weeks earlier, I'd changed the cloud password after Marcus used the app to check whether I'd taken my medication.
He no longer had access.
I looked back at him.
“Twenty minutes?”
“That's what I said.”
I wiped blood from my mouth.
Then smiled.
Rachel stopped.
“What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing.”
Marcus's eyes followed mine.
Pantry.
Camera.
Back to me.
His face changed.
May you like
And I knew the next twenty minutes weren't going to be about making me sign anymore.
They were going to be about getting rid of what had already been recorded.
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