Chapter 6 - DESPERATE MEASURES
Two weeks passed. The silence from San Diego was shattered on a Tuesday evening.
I was reading a book on my balcony when I heard heavy, frantic knocking at my front door. I approached quietly and looked through the peephole. It was Carter. He looked disheveled, a far cry from the polished, arrogant man who had twirled his SUV keys in my face. His eyes were wild.
I didn't open the door. Instead, I pressed the record button on my phone and slid it close to the doorframe.
"Mom! Open the door!" Carter yelled, banging his fist against the wood. "I know you're in there! The police called me. What are you doing? You're ruining us!"
"Go away, Carter," I said firmly through the heavy wood. "I have nothing to say to you."
"Mom, please! Karla left me." His voice cracked, a pathetic sound that once would have broken my heart. "When the accounts froze, she packed up the kids and went to her mother's. The house is going into foreclosure. You have to drop this lawsuit. You're confused, Mom. Come back with me. We can fix this."
Even now, he was trying to gaslight me. You're confused.
"I am not confused, Carter," I replied, my voice steady as stone. "I saw the business accounts. I saw the betting ledgers. And I saw the application to lock me in a home so you could steal this very apartment."
"That was Karla's idea!" he screamed, desperation making him vicious. "She made me do it! Mom, you owe me this, I'm your son!"
"You ceased being my son the day you decided my life was worth a down payment on a house," I said. "I've called the police. They are on their way."
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He cursed violently, kicking the door so hard the frame rattled. But the wail of police sirens in the distance broke his bravado. I watched through the peephole as he scrambled down the hallway, fleeing like a coward.
When the officers arrived, I handed them the audio recording. By morning, Sarah had secured a permanent restraining order against him. Carter was legally barred from coming within a hundred yards of me.
