Chapter 5 - The Cheap Apartment
By 1:00 PM, the warm California afternoon sun was beating down on a run-down, two-story apartment complex in North Hollywood.
The building sat beside a noisy three-lane road, surrounded by cracked asphalt, rusted iron railings, and the constant roar of passing delivery trucks.
A yellow commercial moving van was parked at the curb.
Edwin Vance stood in the narrow, cramped living room of Unit 2B. The air smelled stale, filled with the scent of cheap paint and old carpet.
Around him lay six cardboard boxes—the sum total of what the sheriff’s deputies had permitted them to pack from the Bel Air mansion.
Beverly sat on an upturned cardboard box in the corner, clutching her designer handbag to her chest like a shield, tears running down her wrinkled face, smearing her makeup.
"I can't live here, Edwin!" Beverly wailed, her voice cracking with pathetic misery. "The bathroom carpet is stained! There's no central air conditioning! The neighborhood... my God, I saw a person riding a bicycle down the street!"
"Shut up, Mom!" Edwin roared, slamming his palm against the thin drywall, leaving a dent in the cheap plaster. "Just shut the hell up!"
"Don't you dare talk to Mom like that!" Annika screamed from the tiny kitchen, where she was staring in disgust at a stained linoleum countertop. "This is all your fault, Edwin! You told us you were a millionaire! You let me sign a lease on a sixty-thousand-dollar sports car that got repossessed from the driveway three hours ago!"
"I didn't force you to spend money, Annika!" Edwin shouted back, his eyes bloodshot, his hands shaking wildly. "You spent five years buying designer clothes on Clara’s dime! None of us paid for anything! She paid for everything!"
"Because she was your wife!" Beverly wept. "It was her duty! If you had just treated her properly—"
"Treated her properly?!" Edwin sneered bitterly, letting out a dark, broken laugh. "You mocked her every single day at lunch, Mom! You called her a broke freeloader! You made her clean the kitchen after family dinners while you drank wine in the garden! You both treated her like a dog!"
The words hung in the cramped, hot room, thick with toxic regret.
Like a dog.
The memory of last night flashed back into Edwin’s mind with agonizing clarity. The image of Clara standing in the rain, her eyes cold and dark, smashing the bronze sculpture into the door lock.
Crawl under the dog three times... and maybe I'll let you leave.
He had thought he held all the power. He had thought he was a king, putting a humble servant in her place.
And all the while, she had been holding the keys to his entire existence.
RING! RING! RING!
Edwin’s personal phone—the cheap prepaid device he had been forced to buy at a pharmacy two hours ago—rang loudly in his pocket.
He pulled it out frantically, hoping against hope that it was a bank manager, a legal representative, or someone offering a way out.
The caller ID displayed an unknown local number.
He pressed answer, pressing the phone to his ear with trembling hands. "Hello? Hello! This is Edwin Vance!"
"Edwin Vance?" a cold, authoritative female voice answered.
"Yes! Who is this? Is this Clara’s lawyer?" Edwin begged. "Please, listen to me! I need to speak to Clara! There’s been a massive mistake! I can explain everything! I'll apologize! I'll do whatever she wants!"
"This is Special Agent Sarah Lin of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the voice replied flatly.
Edwin’s heart stopped beating. The cramped living room seemed to spin in circles around him.
"F... FBI?" Edwin stammered, his knees buckling, forcing him to slide down the wall until he was sitting on the dirty carpet.
"Mr. Vance, a federal grand jury in the Central District of California has issued an arrest warrant in your name," Agent Lin stated smoothly. "The charges include three counts of major federal procurement fraud, wire fraud, falsification of municipal structural safety compliance records, and grand tax evasion."
"No... no, no, no," Edwin wept, pulling at his hair with his free hand. "That wasn't me! That was corporate accounting! That was—"
"A federal tactical team is currently outside your location at 1412 Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Unit 2B," Agent Lin interrupted calmly. "Step outside with your hands visible, Mr. Vance. Do not attempt to resist."
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The thin wooden door of the cramped apartment shuddered violently under heavy, metallic blows.
"FEDERAL AGENTS! OPEN THE DOOR! UP AGAINST THE WALL! NOW!"
Beverly screamed in absolute terror, dropping her handbag onto the floor. Annika shrieked, backing into the kitchen, covering her ears.
The door was kicked open, splintering off its cheap hinges. Six heavily armed federal agents in tactical gear flooded into the tiny living room, their assault rifles trained directly on Edwin’s chest.
"ON THE GROUND! DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW!"
Edwin didn't resist. He collapsed onto his stomach, pressing his face into the dirty, stained carpet of the cheap North Hollywood apartment.
As the cold steel handcuffs clicked tightly around his wrists, locking his hands behind his back, he looked up through his tears toward the open doorway.
Outside, passing on the street beyond the rusted iron railing, sat a sleek black luxury sedan with dark tinted windows.
May you like
The rear window rolled down two inches.
For one brief second, Edwin caught a glimpse of the woman sitting in the back seat—Clara Stanford, elegant, powerful, and utterly out of his reach—looking down at him with quiet, absolute indifference before the window rolled back up, and the car drove smoothly away into the bright California sun.
