Chapter 3 - The Eviction Notice
Melissa stared at the photos, her hands trembling violently. The guests were already standing up, picking up their coats, and heading toward the front door without saying another word. Their prestigious dinner party had turned into a criminal crime scene.
"Wait! Please! It’s a misunderstanding!" Melissa cried out, trying to stop her wealthy clients, but they pushed past her with cold, disgusted expressions.
Within five minutes, the dining room was completely empty—except for me, my mother, Derek, Melissa, and her mother, Evelyn, who had come out of the master bedroom wearing an expensive silk robe.
"What is going on out here?" Evelyn demanded, glaring at my mother. "Why is dinner interrupted? I asked for my tea twenty minutes ago!"
"Shut up, Mom!" Melissa snapped, collapsing into a chair, holding her head in her hands.
"Don't you speak to me like that!" Evelyn huffed before turning her glare to me. "Who are you? Get out of our house!"
"This isn't your house, Evelyn," I said, stepping forward. "And your twenty minutes are up."
I pulled three official legal documents from my binder and slapped them onto the table.
"These are formal 24-hour Notices to Quit," I stated. "Issued under emergency property damage and elder endangerment statutes. You, Derek, Melissa, and Evelyn have until 8:00 AM tomorrow morning to pack your personal clothes and clear off my property."
"24 hours?!" Derek gasped, finally finding his voice. "Sarah! I’m your brother! You can't throw us onto the street! We have nowhere to go! My business is struggling!"
"You stopped being my brother the moment you stood by and watched your wife slap our mother," I said, looking him straight in the eye with zero pity. "You let her bleed, Derek. You let her starve. You watched her sleep on a concrete floor next to a washing machine while you drank $200 wine in my dining room."
"I was stressed!" Derek yelled, tears of self-pity brimming in his eyes. "Melissa was threatening to leave me if I didn't provide a good home! What was I supposed to do?!"
"You were supposed to be a son," I said.
"We won't leave!" Melissa snarled, jumping out of her chair, her eyes wild with rage. "You can't force us out without a court order! It takes months to evict tenants in this state! I know the law!"
"You know civil law, Melissa," I replied, pulling my phone from my pocket and tapping the screen. "You forgot about criminal law."
The front doorbell rang sharply. Heavy boots echoed through the foyer.
Two uniformed police officers, accompanied by a social worker from the Department of Adult Protective Services, walked into the dining room.
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"Sarah Vance?" the lead officer asked.
"Yes, Officer," I said, pointing toward Melissa and Derek. "I am the homeowner. I called to file a formal report for felony elder abuse, financial exploitation, and grand larceny."
