Chapter 28

Hailey’s belongings were boxed neatly in the foyer of her home when she arrived. Her car was still in the driveway. There was nothing in her room except for the bed and the dresser. Her closet was empty and so were the drawers. It was like she’d never been there.

Her car was in the same shape. All of the items that had been in there – CDs, her cell phone charger, a makeup case and other things – were in a box in the trunk. Phil was certain Hannah had intended to create an aura of sadness. It backfired.

“I think she’s trying to hide what’s she’s stolen!” Hailey raged. “Well fuck that. I have the printout of my belongings. I’ll unpack every fucking box before I leave so she can’t claim I’d lost it or was lying. Set up the video camera, Tiffany.”

Tiffany put the camera on a tripod and then put her arms around Hailey’s shoulders.

“Do you want to do this by yourself or would you like our help?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“It’ll go quicker if you’ll help,” Hailey decided. “Please just make sure every box is emptied in range of the video camera.”

The first boxes were clothing and Hailey couldn’t identify anything missing. She found boxes of books and some stuffed animals. Anything of any value was gone – but there were a few items included that Hailey knew didn’t belong to her. She didn’t think her mother was being generous with the inclusions.

Hailey was shaking with anger.

“I’m going to call the police,” she said with narrowed eyes. “My jewelry box is gone and so are several hundred CDs and my computer. Phil, would you and Katelyn look around to make sure there are no more boxes? I don’t want to look like an ass. Tiffany, could you please get the folder out of your backpack? I’m sure I’ll have to convince the dumbass cops that a crime has been committed. Uh, sorry, Beth and David, do you have any other ideas?”

“I don’t,” David said.

“You might call your mother and let her know you’ve emptied the boxes at the house and in front of witnesses,” Beth offered. “Do you have any proof that the items were here?”

“I took a video of the items last year for a new insurance policy when I turned 18,” Hailey said. “Then I took a separate video of what I took to college as part of a rental policy we took out. I have a copy of both if we needed them.”

“Good,” Beth said. Phil hadn’t done anything of the sort and only their most expensive belongings were insured.

“What do you think the value of the missing items would run?” she asked.

“Twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars,” Hailey said. “The jewelry was all pretty expensive. All of the stones were genuine. I had a one carat set of diamond earrings that I got for graduation. They were worth $4,000 by themselves. The CDs probably had a resale value of $10 each. I had almost 300 of them. My computer was a Mac laptop that I paid almost $2,000 for. I was afraid someone would steal it if I took it to school so I left it here and bought a cheaper one. I paid for both of them myself. It adds up.”

“I suppose it does,” Beth said.

“I’m also missing all my gowns and the shoes that match them,” she continued. “A couple of the gowns cost more than $1,500 and I had two pairs of Jimmy Choo pumps that cost $800 each.”

“Good God!” Phil muttered. He wasn’t sure everything he owned – including his car – would be worth $10,000.

“Yeah, I was a bit materialistic,” Hailey admitted with chagrin. “I’m not going to call my mother. I’ll let the police track her down.”

The young Stony Ridge patrolman looked dubious until Tiffany pulled out a copy of the state code and a copy of the legal opinion from an attorney. He decided it might be best to call in a supervisor.

Hailey showed the videos she had taken for the insurance company and the one of her and her friends opening up the boxes her mother had provided. The patrol sergeant viewed all of them and nodded his head.

“So you contend that anything listed on the insurance policy that isn’t in the boxes has been stolen – either by your mother or another culprit?” he asked.

“My contention, sir, is that anything that is listed on the homeowner’s policy that isn’t on my rental policy at school, is not in any of these boxes,” she explained. “Anything of value is missing. I think a quick look at the insurance policy will show you that the theft far exceeds that necessary to file grand theft charges. I would like those charges filed at the earliest possible time.”

“Have you spoken to your mother?” the young patrolman asked. He didn’t want to wander into a family quarrel.

“My mother quit her job abruptly last week and she called me last week to inform me that she expected me to pay for her mistake,” Hailey said in an even tone. “I informed her of the relevant statutes that I’ve provided you and told her that I would be here today to pick up my possessions. At that time, I informed her that anything she had sold, given away or destroyed would need to be replaced by today or the value of the items in currency given to me. She cursed and screamed at me because she planned to sell my items in order to keep hers intact. I found that objectionable. I am willing to sell my belongings and to give a reasonable amount toward my mother’s upkeep. I am not willing to subsidize her lifestyle or her stupidity.”

“I’ll file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office,” the sergeant said, nodding at the clarity of the young woman’s statement. “All felony charges have to come from there. You seem to have done most of his job for him so I’m sure it won’t take long. If you’ll give me a number, I’ll keep you informed of the progress.”

“Do you think I should give my mother until the charges are filed to make restitution?” Hailey asked the older man.

“I believe that might make a future reconciliation more likely,” the man replied. “You have to understand that the resale value will be less than the replacement value. What do you think it will cost to repurchase the missing items?”

“Perhaps as much as $50,000,” Hailey admitted. “I estimated the resale value would be half or slightly less. I had planned to give her 70 percent of the money I got from selling them. I thought that was generous of me because everything that I planned to sell was either purchased by me or given to me as a gift – by her or by someone else. I am willing to forego the criminal charges for $5,000 in cash. However, my bankbook is also missing but it’s too late for me to check the account. If she has forged my signature and stolen from my account, I will expect full restitution for every item – and I will expect her to be prosecuted to the fullest extent.”

The sergeant nodded and shook hands with everyone before ushering the patrolman out the door. The rest of the group loaded the boxes into the truck and drove away.

Hailey rode with Beth back to the city – not by some pre-arranged swap of parents but because David thought Hailey might need some mothering. He had stood and seethed when he learned of Hannah Kramer’s theft. It appalled him to think a parent would steal from a child.

Hailey had appeared to be a calm, collected young woman as she explained the situation to the police. Once they had gone she became a scared and vulnerable teenager. She waited until they had driven away from her former home before she broke down in tears. Beth pulled off the road and cradled her son’s girlfriend to her as the young woman’s emotions came out in sobs and wails.

“I’m sorry for getting your blouse all wet,” Hailey told Beth. Unlike Phil’s apartment where the closest thing to a tissue had been toilet paper, Beth had a box of Kleenex in her purse and produced it for Hailey.

“The shirt will dry,” Beth said. “Don’t give it another thought. You take as long as you want. If you want to curse or scream or pound the dashboard, you’re welcome to work this out however you need to.”

“I’d like to find my mother and throttle her,” Hailey hissed.

“I admit that thought has crossed my mind a few times in the past couple of weeks,” Beth said with a smile. “All that would accomplish is for you and me to have sore hands the next morning. I don’t believe your mother is interested in changing.”

“No,” Hailey declared. “I’m not even certain that she understands that she is wrong. She seems to believe that she can do whatever she wants and get away with it. You would have thought she would have learned something from the lesson you taught her last week but it seems entitlement is too engrained in her personality for that to have happened.”

“Were her parents like that?” Beth wondered.

“Not really,” Hailey said. “My grandmother sure wasn’t. I think it was because Mom was an only child. My grandfather doted on her, convinced her that she was special. He did the same thing to me before he passed away. I think my grandmother saw the path my mother was on and tried to temper her but either it didn’t work or my grandfather wouldn’t let her. That’s the way it was when we visited them. I could say or do anything and my grandfather would let me get away with it. If Grandma caught me, she’d try to discipline me – then my Grandpa would come in and undercut her. I didn’t think it was wrong to get special treatment until I saw how things were done the right way.”

“You are special, Dear,” Beth said. “I can tell that you have wit and grace but you also have resolve and a backbone. The thing is, you’re not special because you’re female or pretty or have a nice body. It’s the personality that I can see developing that is going to make you special.”

“A personality I wouldn’t have without your family,” Hailey said. “I meant what I wrote to you last week. I finally got a chance to see how nice people are built. Day by day and brick by brick you’ve made your son into a good person – the same way my mother built me into a selfish and shallow one. I still have those self-centered thoughts and sometimes I even say or do things I know I shouldn’t. Thankfully Phil or one of my friends will call me on it. My ego has taken a bruising in the past couple of weeks. People I never thought would stand up to me have not only done it, they’ve taken me down a peg or two.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mean to be rude about it,” Beth said.

“They weren’t,” Hailey told her. “It’s just that no one ever did that to me. My looks and my overbearing personality had made it so everyone just let me do anything I want. I could be a bully in high school and no one said a word about it. I could cut classes or come drunk to school events and the principal or the teachers would just look the other way. Anyone else would have been suspended or expelled or put in jail for some of the things I’ve done. No one even took the time to explain to me that I had a very flawed belief system – and a very flawed character. If you’re honest with yourself, it was the same way at college.

“I don’t have anywhere the influence your family has at Heilman. I’m not the fourth generation to go there. It isn’t my family that donates so much money to the general scholarship fund. It wasn’t my grandfather who set up the trust to make sure women’s sports were kept alive. I was content to get by with a pretty face and parted legs.”

Beth ignored Hailey’s comment about parted legs.

“We had agreed Philip wasn’t going to play on our family ties,” she said sharply.

“He didn’t!” Hailey cut in quickly, unnerved by the steel in Beth’s voice. “Katelyn has lived there for a while and she knew about the Barton Trust for female athletes. Everyone knows about the Barton legacy at Heilman and the dean of the business college told me about the scholarship money. I’m not certain Phil has ever mentioned it to anyone – certainly not to any of us.”

“Well, he used the information once to stave off a fight with a baseball player,” she admitted a moment later, “but only in general terms. He just advised the guy to mention his name to the athletic director before he did something stupid.”

“Why was he fighting with a baseball player?” Beth asked.

“Me,” Hailey said at the same time. Beth turned in her direction. The look in her eyes told Hailey evasion wasn’t possible. She gamely explained how she had behaved during her first few months on campus – information Beth already knew but wanted to see if Hailey would share.

The young woman didn’t shy away from her actions. Beth decided that, if anything, she overstated them. Beth knew what it was like to be young, pretty and privileged on a college campus.

“Well, that’s through now,” Beth said. “I’ve lived through the same things you did, Hailey, and I came out OK, I think.”

“I think you came out perfect!” Hailey gushed.

“Well, I’ll let you keep thinking that for now, I guess,” Beth said with a smile. “You’ll see soon enough that I have as many flaws as everyone else. I just hope you’ll keep them a secret when you see them. I still have Philip and David fooled.”

“What a bitch!” Katelyn spat as she crawled into the truck beside Tiffany, who was riding in the middle. Phil had expected one of them to ride back with him in Hailey’s car but Tiffany had declared she had to start the seduction of Phil’s father and she wanted Katelyn along as a witness.

“Took the words out of my mouth,” David agreed.