Chapter 6 - The Morning Broadcast
By 6:00 a.m., the rain had stopped, leaving behind a heavy, gray mist that clung to the wet asphalt of our suburban street.
The front lawn of our house was crowded with flashing emergency vehicles, yellow police tape, and a local news van from KGW News Portland, its satellite dish pointed skyward.
Inside the house, police officers and county building inspectors had spent the entire night investigating not just the break-in, but the catastrophic failure of the home’s heating and plumbing system.
It turned out that the leaking pipe in the utility room had been deliberately tampered with. A pressure valve had been cranked past its maximum safety limit—something that could only be done with specific mechanical tools left behind in a tool bag bearing Arthur Vance’s corporate logo.
The intent hadn't just been asset stripping. It had been structural destruction. If the house had flooded completely while laced with those chemical coolants, the entire foundation would have been condemned, erasing every trace of James’s hard work and leaving me with nothing.
I sat on the front porch steps wrapped in a thick wool blanket, holding a warm paper cup of black coffee provided by a sympathetic paramedic.
My phone had been buzzing nonstop since 5:00 a.m.
Missed calls from my mother.
Desperate voice messages from my father.
A frantic text message from Troy, who was currently sitting in the back of a county patrol car alongside Frank and Sarah, awaiting formal arraignment for burglary, trespassing, and conspiracy.
I ignored every single one of them.
Across the lawn, a familiar news anchor stood in front of our police-taped gate, holding a microphone as the red LIVE light glowed on the camera lens.
“Good morning, Portland,” the anchor’s professional voice carried across the damp air. “We are coming to you live from Lake Oswego, where a high-profile corporate conspiracy was uncovered late last night following a dramatic police response...”
Behind the anchor, footage began playing on a portable monitor mounted to the production truck.
It showed screenshots of our family group chat message thread from yesterday afternoon.
“My flight arrives at 5:00 p.m. Could someone please pick me up?”
Troy: Things are crazy today. Just order an Uber.
Mom: Why didn’t you make arrangements earlier? You know Tuesdays are difficult for everyone.
Amelia: No problem.
The television broadcast displayed those exact messages in bold, unforgiving graphics across televisions in living rooms all over the Pacific Northwest.
Then, the anchor continued: “Those chilling words—‘No problem’—were sent by thirty-five-year-old Amelia Carter just hours after burying her husband overseas. While her family claimed they were too ‘busy’ to pick her up from the airport, police records show they were actively orchestrating an illegal break-in and asset seizure at her family home. Tonight, questions are being raised about corporate corruption, family betrayal, and how far some will go for greed...”
Across the street, parked on the shoulder, was my parents’ luxury sedan.
Through the rain-streaked windshield, I could see my mother and father sitting frozen in the front seats, staring up at the television monitor on the news truck with expressions of absolute, unmitigated horror.
They had wanted to keep their dinner plans with the Hendersons. They had wanted to protect their social standing and their corporate alliances.
Instead, their names, their faces, and their cold, heartless text messages were being broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people across the state.
My phone buzzed one last time.
It was a text message from my mother.
“Amelia... please. Answer the phone. Let’s talk about this as a family.”
I looked down at the screen, took a slow sip of my coffee, and typed back my final two words:
May you like
No problem.
Then, I powered the phone completely off, slid it into my pocket, and watched the sunrise break through the gray clouds over the Oregon hills, breathing fresh air for the first time in years.
