Chapter 5
CHAPTER 4 — The Old Will
The reunion in the hospital room was something out of a heartbreaking movie.
They wheeled Arthur in on a specialized gurney. He was frail, his skin pale from years without sunlight, his white hair long and unkempt.
He looked incredibly weak, but when his eyes found me sitting up in my bed, a spark of profound recognition lit up his face.
“Sadie,” he rasped, his voice barely a whisper.
“Grandpa,” I cried, ignoring the pain in my face as I leaned out of my bed to grab his trembling, fragile hand.
“I saw you,” he said, tears pooling in his deep-set eyes. “Through the window. I saw what Gregory did to you. I tried to bang on the glass, but I didn't have the strength.”
“You saved my life, Grandpa,” I sobbed. “If you hadn't looked out that window, the police might never have known to look for you.”
Wyatt stood quietly in the corner, giving us the space we needed, but his presence was a solid wall of comfort.
Over the next few days, as Arthur received proper medical care and nutrition, his mind proved to be incredibly sharp despite his physical deterioration.
The police, the District Attorney, and Wyatt’s private investigators all gathered in his hospital room to take his official statement.
“Brenda told me the world had ended,” Arthur explained to the DA, his voice stronger now. “She locked me in that basement room. She said if I went outside, the government would take me away to an asylum. I was so confused in the beginning. She drugged my food.”
“We have the blood tests confirming long-term sedative use,” the DA nodded grimly. “It’s a textbook case of severe elder abuse and unlawful imprisonment.”
“She made me sign checks,” Arthur continued. “For years. Until I realized what she was doing. Then I stopped signing.”
“How did she get the money if you stopped signing?” Detective Miller asked.
“She forced my hand. Literally,” Arthur said, holding up his bruised wrist. “But she didn't know one very important thing.”
Arthur turned to look at me, a soft, loving smile on his weathered face.
“When Sadie was a little girl, she was the only one who used to sneak down to the basement to talk to me through the door. She used to slide drawings of butterflies under the crack. Brenda always caught her and punished her, but Sadie never stopped trying to be kind to the ‘monster’ in the basement.”
I cried silently, remembering the vague childhood memories of my mother slapping my hands for going near the cellar door.
“I wasn't completely helpless in the beginning,” Arthur said, his eyes hardening with a fierce intelligence.
“Before Brenda completely cut off my communication, I managed to bribe a plumber who came to fix a leak in the basement. I gave him a gold watch I had hidden, and in exchange, he mailed a letter for me to my old attorney in Chicago.”
The room went entirely silent.
“What was in the letter, Mr. Pendleton?” the DA asked, leaning forward.
“A handwritten, legally binding codicil to my Last Will and Testament,” Arthur smiled triumphantly.
“I revoked Brenda’s inheritance. I revoked any claim Melanie might have had. I left the entire remainder of my estate, including the properties, the hidden offshore accounts Brenda didn't know about, and the Columbus house itself, to one person.”
He squeezed my hand.
“Sadie.”
Wyatt let out a low whistle of shock. “They were living in a house they didn't even own.”
“Exactly,” Arthur chuckled, a sound that brought a brief moment of light to the dark room.
“Brenda and Gregory thought they were waiting for me to die so they could inherit the rest of the hidden assets. But the truth is, the moment I die, the lawyers will reveal the truth. They get absolutely nothing. Sadie gets everything.”
The irony was staggering.
My parents had tried to destroy my face to secure Wyatt’s fortune for Melanie.
They had locked their own father in a basement for two decades out of pure, unadulterated greed.
And in the end, the very daughter they despised, the one they viewed as an obstacle, was legally the sole heir to the entire Pendleton fortune.
“Mr. Pendleton,” the DA said, closing his notebook with a definitive snap.
“With this testimony, combined with the assault on Sadie and the financial fraud... your daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter are never going to see the outside of a prison cell.”
May you like
Arthur looked at me, then at Wyatt.
“Good,” the old man said simply. “Let them rot.”
