Chapter 3 - The Motel on Highway 50
The rain began to fall as twilight settled over the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Five miles down Highway 50, far from the pristine gates of Emerald Bay Heights, parked in the gravel lot of a faded two-star roadside motel, sat David’s SUV.
Inside the small, yellow-lit room, the air was thick with the smell of damp carpet, cheap cleaning chemicals, and cold, greasy takeout pizza.
Evelyn sat on the edge of one of the twin beds, her synthetic silk blouse wrinkled, her hair disheveled, sobbing loudly into a paper napkin.
"Four hundred dollars a night!" Evelyn wailed, pointing a trembling finger at the peeling wallpaper. "Four hundred dollars for a room that smells like stale tobacco! David, do something! Call the police! Call the governor! Your father has high blood pressure! He cannot sleep in a bed with synthetic sheets!"
David stood by the small window, his suit jacket off, his tie loosened, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. His phone was glued to his ear, his face pale and slick with sweat.
"I don't care what the local precinct said!" David roared into the phone. "It’s a civil dispute! My wife’s mother is mentally incompetent! She’s being manipulated by a law firm!"
He paused, listening to the voice on the other end, before slamming his fist against the wall. "Don't tell me to file an injunction! The court closed at five! My moving trucks are sitting in a commercial parking lot charging me two hundred dollars an hour!"
He hung up the phone and threw it onto the bed.
Emily sat in the corner on a wooden chair, her knees pulled up to her chest, her hands wrapped tightly around her arms. She hadn't spoken a word since they left the gate. She just stared at the rain streaking down the dirty windowpane.
"This is your fault, Emily!" Evelyn shrieked, turning her tear-streaked face toward her daughter-in-law. "You told us the house was yours! You told us your mother was a weak, timid woman who did whatever you asked! You promised my husband a master suite overlooking the lake!"
"Shut up, Mom," David snapped, grabbing a bottle of cheap water from the dresser.
"Don't you dare tell me to shut up!" Evelyn yelled, standing up. "We sold our furniture! We gave up our apartment lease in Sacramento because you said we were moving into a seven-million-dollar estate! Look at where we are! We're living in a ditch!"
"Emily," David said, stepping toward his wife, his voice dropping into a desperate, furious hiss. "Where is she? Where did your mother go?"
Emily slowly raised her head. Her eyes were red, shadowed with deep, dark circles. "I don't know, David."
"You do know!" David shouted, grabbing her shoulder and shaking her. "She’s your mother! She doesn't have any other properties! She lives in that townhouse in San Francisco! Is she there?"
"The San Francisco townhouse was sold two months ago, David," Emily said quietly, her voice entirely flat, devoid of life.
David froze. "What?"
"I checked her mail three weeks ago," Emily whispered, looking at him with hollow eyes. "I thought it was just a financial statement from her trust. But it wasn't. She sold the townhouse in May. She sold the condo in San Diego last year."
"Where is the money?!" David yelled, his fingers digging into her shoulder. "Emily! Where is the cash from those sales?!"
"I don't know!" Emily screamed back, suddenly pulling away from him and standing up, her hands trembling violently. "I didn't ask her! I didn't care! I thought... I thought she was just giving everything to me eventually! I thought she was an old woman who sat at home waiting for me to call!"
"You idiot!" David barked, slamming his hand against the dresser so hard a plastic lamp rattled. "Do you have any idea what you've done?! My firm’s credit line with First Western Bank was contingent on securing real estate collateral by Monday morning! I listed the Emerald Bay villa as my primary asset on the disclosure forms!"
Evelyn gasped, pulling her hands to her mouth. "David... what are you saying?"
David turned to his mother, his face turning gray under the flickering fluorescent light of the motel room. "I’m saying that if I don't show First Western Bank a master deed to a multi-million-dollar property by 9:00 AM on Monday... they are executing a default seizure on my commercial office building downtown. And my business will be bankrupt before Friday."
He turned back to Emily, stepping so close she could smell the sour whiskey on his breath.
"You are going to find your mother, Emily," David whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying, desperate rage. "You are going to crawl on your knees, you are going to cry, you are going to beg, and you are going to get her to sign that trust revocation paper. Because if my business goes down... you are going down to the pavement with me."
Emily stared at her husband—the man she had lied to her mother for, the man whose mother she had tried to install in her father's sacred home.
May you like
And for the first time, she saw him clearly. He didn't love her. He didn't respect her. He had married the daughter of Arthur Sterling because he thought she was a golden ticket to a life he couldn't earn.
And her mother had known it all along.
