Claire stood on the bottom step of the cellar stairs, dressed in a tailored black wool coat, holding a slim leather folder against her chest.
Behind her stood an imposing man in a private security uniform, his hand resting casually on his utility belt.
Amanda: Step away from that staircase, Claire, or I swear you will leave this basement in an ambulance.
Claire: Lower your tone, Amanda. You are an emotional child who has spent five years ignoring this family while living in Manhattan.
Amanda: I was running my own design firm while you were worming your way into my father's bank accounts!
Claire: Your father was a dying man who needed real companionship, not a daughter who only visited on Thanksgiving.
Jason: Claire, whatever civil dispute you had over the estate, locking a dependent spouse in an unheated cellar without medication is a class-A felony.
Claire: Don't play the noble legal scholar with me, Jason. You are an associate accountant whose firm was hired to audit the books, nothing more.
Jason: I am a certified forensic auditor and an officer bound by statutory reporting obligations. I have an active emergency incident opened on my mobile terminal right now.
Claire chuckled softly, opening the leather folder and pulling out a stamped legal document.
Claire: Your terminal won't help you. Before Richard died, he signed a revised marital agreement granting me full custodial authority over Evelyn's healthcare decisions.
Evelyn: That agreement was executed while Richard was on maximum-dose morphine in the palliative care unit! He didn't even recognize his own signature!
Claire: The attending physician signed off on his mental competence, Evelyn. A physician who happens to sit on the board of my charitable foundation.
Amanda: You bribed a hospital director to steal my father's life work.
Claire: I secured what was rightfully mine. Richard promised me this estate when I agreed to care for him during his final months.
Amanda: My father would never disinherit his daughters. He spent twenty-five years building that trust fund specifically so we would be protected.
Claire: Well, he changed his mind when he realized how greedy his children turned out to be. Security officer, please escort Amanda and Mr. Miller back upstairs.
The security guard took one heavy step forward onto the concrete, his face set in a hard, indifferent stare.
Security Guard: Let's go, folks. No need to make this difficult before the sheriff gets involved.
Jason: Officer, if you touch either of us, you become a direct co-conspirator to unlawful imprisonment and elder abuse under federal statutes.
Security Guard: I work for Mrs. Vance. My contract is signed and paid through the end of the fiscal month.
Evelyn: He isn't working for Mrs. Vance. I am Mrs. Vance. The only legal Mrs. Vance named on the primary title of this residential property.
Claire's lips curled into a thin, venomous smile as she stepped off the bottom riser.
Claire: Your divorce was finalized six years ago, Evelyn. You have no legal standing in this house.
Evelyn: The divorce was filed, Claire, but the final decree was never entered by the county court clerk.
The basement went utterly still, save for the low hum of the distant water heater.
Claire: What did you just say?
Evelyn: Richard and I reconciled our marital agreement five months before he took ill. We never submitted the final settlement papers to the judge.
Amanda: Which means your marriage to my father in Las Vegas was completely void from day one.
Claire's grip on the leather folder tightened until the stiff cardboard began to bend and crack.
Claire: You're lying. That is an old woman's desperate delusion!
Evelyn: The reconciliation agreement is filed inside the fireproof wall safe behind the coal chute. Along with the unrevoked corporate share certificates.