Chapter 5 - The Subpoena at the Rehearsal
The strategy was executed with malicious compliance. Victoria Vance didn't just send the legal documents via standard mail; she hired a professional, high-end private process server in Phoenix to deliver them at the absolute worst possible moment for the Simpson family.
It was the evening of Beth’s formal bridal shower. The event was being held at an upscale country club in Scottsdale, hosted by her fiancé's incredibly wealthy and conservative family, the Miers.
According to the detailed report the process server sent back to us via email, my mother and Beth were standing in the center of the grand ballroom, surrounded by ninety guests, holding glasses of champagne, when a man in a sharp grey suit approached them.
"Beth Simpson? Linda Simpson?" the man asked loudly enough to attract the attention of the nearby tables.
"Yes?" Beth had replied, smiling brightly, likely expecting a late wedding delivery or a floral arrangement.
"You have been formally served with a civil lawsuit issued by the Superior Court of California for the County of Monterey," the server announced, pulling two thick, blue-bound legal packets from his briefcase. "The charges include defamation per se, tortious interference with contract, and electronic fraud. You are required to preserve all electronic devices, including mobile phones and personal computers, for forensic analysis within forty-eight hours."
The ballroom had gone completely silent. The mother of the groom, a woman whose social standing was biblical in Scottsdale circles, stepped forward, her eyes wide with horror as she looked at the legal documents clutched in Beth’s trembling, manicured hands.
Within an hour of the event being utterly ruined, my phone began to blow up with messages.
Beth: “You psycho! You ruined my shower! Mr. Mier is furious! They are asking what electronic fraud means! Undo this right now or I swear I will kill you!”
My father: “Joanna, this has gone too far. Your sister is hyperventilating. Your mother is locked in her room. Please, let's settle this as a family. We can talk about the money.”
I didn't reply to a single text. I forwarded every message, every screenshot, directly to Victoria Vance's secure server. Every text they sent under the influence of panic was more evidence of their emotional instability and their coordination against me.
Later that night, my corporate email administrator sent a secure alert to my personal phone. The internal forensic IT audit at my firm had detected a massive anomaly: an IP address originating from a residential network in Phoenix, Arizona, had tried to log into my corporate database again using the compromised credentials—but this time, the security firewall had captured the specific MAC address of the device.
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It belonged to Beth’s personal MacBook Pro.
They had tried to do it again to ensure I stayed fired, but in their panic, they had walked right into the digital trap my company's security team had laid.
