Chapter 3 - The Broken PedestalBy the end of my first week in the hospital, the orthopedic ward had become a fortress.
Two uniformed officers were stationed outside Room 412 around the clock, while a parade of investigators from the San Diego District Attorney’s Office, the California Department of Justice, and the FBI walked in and out with briefcases stuffed with subpoenaed records.
My father, Robert Wellman, who had divorced my mother twelve years ago and moved to Seattle to escape her suffocating narcissism, caught the first flight down the moment he read the headline in the San Diego Union-Tribune: PROMINENT LA JOLLA REAL ESTATE SCION ARRESTED IN SAVAGE DOMESTIC ASSAULT AND $40M FRAUD SCHEME.
When he walked into my room, his face was gray, his shoulders slumped under a weathered corduroy jacket. He didn't say a word for the first five minutes. He just pulled the vinyl chair up to my bed, took my uninjured hand between both of his, and wept silently.
"I should have fought harder for you during the divorce, Monnie," Robert said, using my childhood nickname, his voice cracking with old, unresolved grief. "I knew Eleanor was poison. I knew she treated Austin like an extension of her own vanity, turning him into a sociopath who thought the world owed him everything. But I thought... I thought you were safe because you were smart, because you had your own career."
"I was never safe, Dad," I answered softly, looking down at the heavy steel pins protruding from the bandages on my knee. "Austin was her golden child. Everything he touched had to be gold, even if he had to steal the paint from someone else’s grave. If I told the truth, it made him look tarnished. And in Eleanor’s house, tarnishing Austin was the only unforgivable sin."
The door opened, and Detective Lin stepped in, accompanied by Clara Vance.
Clara was not in her nursing scrubs today. She wore a sharp charcoal blazer and dark slacks, and behind her walked a young woman who looked so frail she seemed almost translucent.
Kathleen Vance.
She was twenty-nine years old, with hollow cheekbones, pale blue eyes, and long, dark hair pulled back in a simple braid. She wore an oversized wool sweater that swallowed her small frame. When she saw me propped up in the hospital bed, her knees buckled slightly, and Clara caught her by the elbow.
"Monica," Kathleen whispered, stepping toward the bed. Her voice was the same trembling sound I had heard over the receiver three days before my life fell apart. "You're... you're the one who called me."
"I'm Monica," I said, offering a weak smile.
Kathleen didn't shake my hand. Instead, she fell forward onto the edge of the mattress, burying her face into the blanket beside my hip, sobbing so violently that the entire bed shook.
"I thought I was crazy," Kathleen wept, her words muffled by the hospital linen. "Austin told me my family hated me. He told me Clara had stolen my inheritance and tried to have me committed to a facility. He told me he was protecting me from them! He told me if I ever walked down that mountain, the federal marshals would arrest me for tax evasion! For five years, Monica... five years in that cabin with no one but Eleanor bringing me stale groceries and telling me what a worthless, ungrateful burden I was!"
Clara stood behind her sister, tears rolling down her cheeks, her hand resting firmly on Kathleen’s trembling back. "We spent four years searching every homeless shelter and runaway registry between Seattle and San Diego, Monica. Austin had filed a forged letter of estrangement with the county probate clerk, claiming Kathleen had joined a closed religious commune in Northern California. Every time we petitioned to inspect the endowment records, Eleanor’s attorney produced notarized affidavits allegedly signed by Kathleen stating she didn't want any contact with her family."
"They were all forgeries," I said, looking at Detective Lin.
"All of them," Lin confirmed. "Austin had a retired notary public in Chula Vista on a ten-thousand-dollar annual retainer just to stamp whatever documents Eleanor brought him. We executed a search warrant on that notary’s office yesterday afternoon. We seized three filing cabinets containing forged powers of attorney, fabricated loan agreements, and fraudulent escrow releases."
"And Austin?" I asked.
"Austin had his formal bail hearing two hours ago," Lin said, pulling a folded legal brief from her pocket. "The District Attorney added eleven counts of federal wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, grand larceny, and false imprisonment to the original charges of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder."
"Did he get bail?" Robert asked, his voice hardening.
"The magistrate denied bail entirely," Lin replied with cold satisfaction. "He is classified as an extreme flight risk. When we searched Austin’s luxury high-rise condo on Harbor Drive, we found two forged Greek passports, four burner phones, and seventy-five thousand dollars in bearer bonds sewn into the lining of his garment bag. He was planning to clean out the remaining cash from the Millican merger and flee to Cyprus the moment the wedding was certified."
Kathleen lifted her head from my bed. Her face was streaked with tears, but behind the exhaustion in her pale eyes, a spark of pure, unadulterated resolve had finally ignited.
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"He took five years of my life, Monica," Kathleen said, wiping her face with the sleeve of her sweater. "He took my youth, my dignity, and he tried to kill you to keep his secret. I am going to testify at every single hearing. I am going to stand on that witness stand and make sure he never walks free again."
"You won't be standing alone," I told her, reaching out and squeezing her hand. "I’ve spent ten years auditing balance sheets for the state court. I know every single dollar he stole. And I’m going to personally trace every penny until there is nowhere left for him to hide."
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