The pounding came again, harder this time.
“Irene Brooks?” a man called from the hallway.
“Ada County Sheriff’s Office.”
I stood barefoot in the hotel room, my phone pressed to my ear and my attorney, Daniel Mercer, still on the line.
Through the peephole, I could see my father beside the deputy.
He wore the same gray slacks from the party, but his dress shirt was wrinkled and open at the throat.
The blue folder was clamped beneath one arm.
His face no longer held the calm authority he had displayed in the dining room.
He looked frightened.
“Daniel,” I whispered, “my father is here with a deputy.”
“Do not open the door until the deputy identifies himself and explains why he is there,” Daniel said.
“Put me on speaker.”
I did as he instructed.
The deputy showed his badge through the peephole and said my father had requested a civil standby.
According to him, my father wanted to return personal property that belonged to me and ask me to sign a document acknowledging receipt.
Daniel gave a humorless laugh through the phone.
“He brought a witness,” he said.
“Good.
Let him.”
I opened the door but left the security chain fastened.
My father immediately lifted a sheet of paper.
“We can settle this nonsense right now,” he said.
“Sign that you received your belongings and that you have no financial claim against the house.”
The deputy turned toward him.
“Mr.
Brooks, you told dispatch you were returning property.
You did not mention a financial release.”
“It’s all part of the same misunderstanding.”
“No,” Daniel said from my phone.
“It is not.”
My father’s eyes narrowed when he heard another man’s voice.
“Who is that?”
“My attorney.”
For the first time in my life, those two words changed the way my father looked at me.
He had always treated my decisions as temporary emotions he could outlast.
He believed I would cry, apologize, and return to paying his bills.
An attorney meant I had stepped outside the role he had assigned me.
I unfastened the chain after the deputy assured me he would remain present.
My father thrust the folder toward me.
The seal had been torn open.
Several pages were bent, and one corner of the notarized agreement had been ripped.
Pamela had apparently searched through every document before sending her photograph.
The deputy activated his body camera and asked my father to place the folder on the small desk near the door.
My father did, then tapped the release form with one finger.
“Sign this, Irene.
Your mother is sick from the stress you caused.”
I stared at him.
Less than twelve hours earlier, he had called me a burden before a room full of people.
Now he had come to my hotel at dawn carrying evidence and demanding that I surrender my rights so my mother would not feel stressed.
“You told me you wanted to live without me,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean you get to sabotage us.”
“I canceled payments from my own account.”
“You know we depend on that money.”
The deputy’s expression shifted slightly.
My father noticed and lowered his voice.
