Chapter 40
Choice A is you accept the debt, you try to pay it off, you liquidate your retirement savings, you sell your truck, you maybe sell the land to pay the bank, you save Austin from criminal charges, but you bankrupt yourself and the children’s future. And choice B? I asked knowing the answer before she gave it.
Choice B is the nuclear option, Rachel said. We claim fraud. We go to the police and the bank and we file a sworn affidavit that you did not sign that power of attorney. We prove that Austin forged your signature. If we do that, the bank has to eat the loss. The debt becomes invalid because it was acquired through criminal identity theft.
You keep the house. You keep your savings. But Austin goes to prison, I said. Yes, Rachel said, and not for a weekend. We are talking about bank fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft involving a senior citizen. That is a federal crime with mandatory minimum sentencing. He is looking at 10 years bill, maybe 15.
10 years. My son. I looked at the bathroom door. Beyond it, my grandchildren were sleeping in a fort made of pillows. They had finally found a moment of peace. They believed I could protect them. They believed grandpa could fix anything. If I chose option A, if I tried to save Austin, I would be breaking my promise to them.
I would be throwing away the resources I needed to send them to college to feed them to give them a stable home. I would be sacrificing the innocent to save the guilty. But if I chose option B, I would be the one putting the handcuffs on my own son. I would be the one testifying against him. I would be the one sending him to a cage for a decade.
Bill. Rachel’s voice cut through my thoughts. I need to know what you want to do. The bank opens in 5 hours. If we are going to file the fraud claim, we need to do it before the foreclosure process advances. We need to strike first. I stood up. I looked in the mirror again. The man looking back at me was crying.
A single tear tracked through the stubble on my cheek, but his eyes were hard. They were the eyes of a commander who had just ordered an air strike on his own position to stop the enemy from advancing. Austin had made his choice. He made it when he picked up the pen to forge my name.