Chapter 6 - The Police Escort
At 1:30 PM, two marked Chula Vista police cruisers pulled up behind my Civic in front of the Ruiz residence. Officer Davis, a broad-shouldered man with a tired expression, walked up to my window.
“Ms. Ruiz? We have thirty minutes to assist you in retrieving your essential personal belongings. We are here to keep the peace, not to mediate property division disputes. Understood?”
“Understood, Officer,” I said, stepping out. “I only need my clothes, my personal documents, and a locked leather train case from the upstairs closet.”
As we walked up the concrete path, the front door flew open before I could even ring the bell. Rosalind stood in the doorway, wearing an oversized housecoat, a cigarette dangling from her fingers. When she saw the two uniformed officers standing behind me, the cigarette nearly tumbled from her lips.
“What is this?” she shrieked, backing into the entryway. “Brandon! Brandon, get down here! She brought the police!”
Brandon came stumbling down the stairs, wearing his undershirt and sweatpants, his eyes wild and bloodshot. He had clearly called in sick to work.
“Charlotte? What are you doing?” he stammered, staring at Officer Davis’s utility belt. “Are you out of your mind? You brought cops to my house?”
“Officers are here for a civil standby while Ms. Ruiz collects her pre-marital personal property,” Officer Davis said, stepping firmly across the threshold. “Step aside, please, sir.”
“She’s not taking a damn thing from this house!” Rosalind screamed, attempting to block the staircase. “Everything in this house belongs to my son! She abandoned him on Sunday! She left this marriage!”
“Ma’am, step back immediately or you will be detained for obstruction,” the second officer, a younger woman named Martinez, said with icy authority.
Rosalind gasped, clutching her chest, but she backed up against the wall, her glare promising murder.
I hurried up the stairs, my heart pounding in my ears. I walked into the guest room, reached up to the high shelf of the closet, and pulled down the black leather train case.
It felt wrong.
It was too light.
A cold wave of dread washed over me. I unzipped the top compartment, reached beneath the false velvet bottom, and felt around.
The heavy, velvet-lined wooden box containing the twelve Gold Eagles was gone.
In its place was an empty plastic ziplock bag and an old receipt from an auto repair shop.
I stood there for three seconds, breathing slowly, forcing the panic down into a dark, frozen corner of my brain. I didn't scream. I didn't cry.
I took out my phone, took three high-resolution photos of the empty compartment, and walked back out onto the landing.
Brandon was standing at the foot of the stairs, watching me with a nervous twitch in his left eyelid. Rosalind was standing behind him, a smug, contemptuous smirk playing on her thin lips.
“Find everything you needed, *darling*?” Rosalind asked, her voice dripping with venom.
I walked down the stairs slowly, stopping on the third step so I was looking directly down into Brandon’s face.
“Where are the coins, Brandon?”
Brandon swallowed hard, glancing at his mother. “What coins? I don't know what you’re talking about. You probably left them at your old apartment.”
“The twelve American Gold Eagles given to me by my father. The ones sitting in this case on Sunday night when I packed my overnight bag. Where are they?”
“You can’t prove anything was in that bag!” Rosalind laughed, folding her arms over her chest. “Maybe you made it up! Maybe you’re trying to commit insurance fraud! Officer, she’s trying to claim she had gold in my house! Does this look like Fort Knox to you?”
Officer Davis looked between Rosalind and me, his hand resting on his belt. “Ma’am, do you have documentation of the items?”
“I do,” I said clearly. “I have the original dealer certificates with the specific serial numbers, the date of purchase, and the notarized transfer deed from my father. And more importantly...”
I pulled out my phone and tapped the screen.
“I have the motion-activated pet camera I set up on the bookshelf in the guest room two weeks ago to keep an eye on my cat when I stayed over.”
The smirk on Rosalind’s face vanished instantly. Her skin turned the color of damp parchment.
Brandon’s mouth dropped open. “You... you set up a camera?”
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“I’m an auditor, Brandon. I verify everything,” I said, looking Rosalind dead in the eyes. “The footage uploads directly to a cloud server. I wonder what the camera saw between yesterday afternoon and this morning? Would you like to check the server with Officer Davis right now, Rosalind? Or would you prefer to hand over the box before grand larceny charges are filed?”
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