A laugh bubbled up—thin, shocked, not funny at all. “They abandoned me,” I said, but my voice sounded distant even to myself. Like the words belonged to someone else.
Officer Hughes asked for context, and I gave it. The five-year cutoff. Clara’s debts. The demands to sell my home. The private investigator. The uninvited visit. I told him everything, each sentence feeling like I was laying out evidence not just for the police, but for myself. Proof I hadn’t imagined the madness.
When I finished, he exhaled slowly.
“So they didn’t know you’d sold the house,” he said.
“No,” I said. “They probably went there to vandalize my property. Instead they destroyed some innocent person’s home.”
“That’s exactly what it looks like,” he agreed. “And I have to say—your parents are lucky they weren’t shot. The homeowner is a legal gun owner. He came in, heard the noise, and called 911 from his car. If he’d walked in—”
I opened my eyes, suddenly nauseous.
My parents could have been killed. Over a vendetta. Over money. Over Clara.
After I hung up, I sat frozen until Julian came out of his office and saw my face.
“What happened?” he asked immediately, crossing the room.