Chapter 5 - The Reckoning and Collapse of the Parasites
The legal and social destruction of Bernice, Angie, and Spencer was swift, total, and completely devoid of mercy.
Because they had violated an active emergency protective order in a commercial venue packed with state judges, county prosecutors, and municipal leaders, the district attorney offered no lenient plea deals.
Spencer Hayes was the first to fall.
Within forty-eight hours of the gala, the video of the event—accompanied by the anniversary clip of the wine attack—went viral across LinkedIn and national business news outlets. Spencer’s brokerage terminated his license for moral turpitude and breach of fiduciary trust. Faced with an immediate forensic audit of his credit card accounts and the prospect of felony embezzlement charges for misrepresenting corporate credit, Spencer turned on Angie like a cornered dog.
In a dingy consultation room at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center, Spencer filed for immediate dissolution of marriage. In his sworn affidavit, he claimed that Angie had systematically deceived him regarding the source of their income, portraying her as an abusive narcissist who had forced him to participate in the harassment of her sister. He vacated the extended-stay motel, packed his two remaining suitcases into an old used sedan he bought with borrowed money from his estranged brother, and fled to Phoenix to work as a telemarketer for a timeshare company.
Angie was left with nothing.
Her design firm fired her before she was even released on bail, citing catastrophic reputational damage. With no credit, an active eviction on her public record, and no references, she couldn't qualify for even a studio apartment in the lowest-income areas of Fountain. She spent two weeks sleeping on the couch of an acquaintance from her high school days—until the acquaintance asked her to leave when Angie threw a tantrum because there was no organic oat milk in the refrigerator.
By the end of the month, Angie Palmer was working thirty-two hours a week behind the register of a discount home-goods store off Academy Boulevard, wearing a blue polyester smock and earning sixteen dollars an hour. She rented a wood-paneled basement room in an elderly widow’s house, washing her clothes in a utility sink and eating store-brand instant noodles off a folding card table. Whenever a customer walked into the store carrying a designer bag or wearing the jewelry she used to purchase with Veronica’s corporate cards, Angie would turn her face toward the stockroom shelves and weep until her eyes burned.
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At 4410 Promontory Bluff View, the end arrived on a cold Tuesday morning.
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