Kicked Out For My Sister’s Baby I Returned Rich Chapter 06
Trent tossed his phone onto the coffee table, his throat dry.
“She changed her number. My emails are bouncing. All her accounts are gone. I can’t reach her.”
Marlene, still keeping up a brave front, gave a dismissive laugh.
“Where could she have gone? In a few days, when she runs out of money, she’ll come crawling back on her own.”
That afternoon she called to book a family doctor’s appointment. After checking the file, the clinic told her the authorized contact on the family account was Thea Holloway. To change the insurance information, they’d need identity verification from the account holder or entirely new paperwork.
“Then just give me the insurance company’s phone number.”
“Ma’am, which provider is your policy with?”
Marlene opened her mouth and had no answer.
The insurance renewals, the doctor’s appointments, the claims paperwork—I had always handled all of it. Marlene couldn’t even recall which drawer the policy was in.
The customer service rep kept waiting, but Marlene’s hand had begun to shake. In the end she hung up in a hurry.
That night Marlene borrowed an old classmate’s Facebook account and typed in my full name.
Nothing.
She tried city names, school names, company names, searching over and over. Every time, the screen returned the same result: No users found.
Marlene shot to her feet so fast her arm swept a pill bottle off the table. Regina’s prenatal vitamins scattered across the floor.
“She disappeared.”
Trent looked up.
“What?”
“Thea deleted every social media account she had. She didn’t block us. She deleted them all!”
The front door lock clicked.
Gordon came in holding a red envelope. The county tax office seal was printed on the front, beside a glaring FINAL WARNING stamp.
The front door lock clicked.
Gordon came in holding a red envelope. The county tax office seal was printed on the front, beside a glaring FINAL WARNING stamp.
Marlene snatched it from him. She read only two lines before her voice shot up.
“Gordon! We got a red envelope from the county tax office!”
Gordon grabbed it back.
The title stared up at him in bold black letters—
NOTICE OF PROPERTY TAX LIEN.
Because the property taxes remained unpaid, penalties had been added to the balance. If the matter wasn’t resolved by the deadline, the county would place a lien on the house and begin foreclosure proceedings.
Gordon’s face went white.
He had always assumed the taxes were paid.
More precisely, he had always assumed I would pay them.
The downstairs door opened, and Regina came out in a face mask, frowning with annoyance.
“Then just pay the taxes. What’s the big deal?”
One hand at her lower back, she glared at them.
“Can you stop acting like the sky is falling? You’re making so much noise I can’t even sleep.”
No one answered.
The red envelope lay on the coffee table.
The living room was silent.