My Father Brought a Locksmith to Sell the Ranch I Bought
I thought about calling Rachel Monroe. She had been my captain in the military, and she was the only person I knew who could read a bank statement like a map.
My phone buzzed on the wood table, sliding two inches across the scarred pine.
I unlocked the screen. The message was from Linda, my stepmother, the text sent from a number I had not saved in my new phone.
“Stay away from the bank in Craig Olivia Arthur is talking to the manager and you do not need to make this worse than it is.”
I stared at the glowing letters on the screen. My stepmother did not text me unless Arthur told her to, or unless she was terrified of what he would do if she stayed quiet.
The bank in Craig was where I kept my savings, but it was also the branch that had handled the foreclosure sale on this very house.
I reached down and adjusted the silver watch on my wrist, pressing the cold metal against my skin until the links bit into my arm.
