Chapter 8 - Seventeen Stolen Homes
The next morning, I sat across from my father at a small kitchen table inside the secure residence.
He had barely slept.
Neither had I.
"Seventeen families?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Possibly more. Investigators are checking."
He looked devastated.
"All those people..."
I expected anger.
Instead, Dad seemed to blame himself.
"I should have done more."
I leaned forward.
"Dad, you tried to stop them."
"I wrote letters. I went to meetings. I called the county."
"And they ignored you."
He looked down.
"Your mother would have kept fighting."
I reached across the table.
"So did you."
He shook his head.
"I was scared, Gideon."
The admission surprised me.
My father had always been the steady one.
He was the person who fixed broken appliances, stayed calm during storms, and somehow made every difficult situation feel manageable.
Now his voice trembled.
"After Marjorie started threatening me, I stopped sleeping. Every car that slowed down outside made me nervous."
He looked directly at me.
"I thought if I told you, I'd put you in danger."
My heart hurt.
"You could have called me."
"You told me your work was important."
I swallowed.
"It was."
He nodded.
"I know."
Then he said something I would never forget.
"But you're important, too, son."
For several moments, neither of us spoke.
Eventually, my phone rang.
Tamson.
"We have Lydia."
"Is she safe?"
"Yes. She's with her protective detail."
Relief swept through me.
"Did she identify Reddick's location?"
"Not yet. But she gave us something important."
Lydia had kept a private copy of Meridian's internal accounting records.
She had suspected the company was laundering money through neighborhood associations long before she became a cooperating witness.
Her records revealed that Reddick wasn't merely buying distressed properties.
He was operating a network of shell companies that purchased homes through fraudulent transfers, borrowed against inflated property values, and moved the proceeds through investment accounts.
Some homes were sold to legitimate buyers who had no idea the original owners had been deceived.
Others were held as collateral for loans.
When the network began attracting complaints, Reddick used forged financial documents to blame selected homeowners.
My father was one of them.
But Lydia had uncovered another piece of the conspiracy.
The county recorder's office had received payments through a consulting company connected to Brennan Stone.
For years, Stone had helped facilitate suspicious property filings.
Tamson showed me a payment summary.
One transfer stood out.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Dated August 24, 2021.
I stared at it.
Three weeks before my mother died.
My father's story had been true.
Reddick had offered Ruth fifty thousand dollars to remain silent.
But something in the payment record didn't fit.
The money hadn't gone to my mother.
It had gone to a company associated with Stone.
I called Tamson.
"Could that have been a payoff to hide what happened when she refused?"
"That's one possibility."
"Then we need to know what Ruth discovered."
"We're already tracing the transaction."
Later that afternoon, Lydia agreed to speak with investigators about my mother's name appearing in Meridian's records.
The information she provided was devastating.
According to an internal memorandum, Ruth Mercer had obtained copies of original development maps proving that several properties were excluded from the HOA's recorded covenants.
If those documents became public, they could undermine years of fraudulent enforcement claims.
Reddick had considered her a serious threat.
Then Lydia revealed the sentence written at the bottom of the memorandum.
If Mrs. Mercer refuses settlement, initiate secondary pressure through family property and heirs.
I read it three times.
May you like
My father had been targeted long before my undercover assignment.
And the people who forged my name into their financial records hadn't chosen me by accident.
