Chapter 9 - The Panic In The Diner
At 2:30 p.m., inside a greasy roadside diner on the outskirts of Columbus, the Mercer family hierarchy was disintegrating into hysterical mutual recrimination.
Richard Mercer sat in a cracked vinyl booth, his hands clutching a mug of lukewarm tap water because his personal credit cards had been declined at the counter.
Across the table sat Denise, her eyes swollen and red from hours of crying, her expensive makeup smeared across her cheeks in muddy tracks.
Beside her slumped Cody, his hood pulled low over his face as he frantically swiped through his smartphone, watching his social media accounts implode in real time.
“This is all your fault, Cody!” Denise hissed, slamming her open palm onto the Formica tabletop so hard that the plastic salt shaker toppled over.
“Why did you have to touch Emma’s stupid headset?”
“Why did you put her laptop charger in your backpack?”
“If you had just let her leave with her junk, Daniel wouldn't have called the county sheriff!”
Cody jerked his head up, his eyes flashing with petulant rage.
“My fault?”
“You were the one who told me to take the corner bedroom, Mom!”
“You said, ‘Daniel is weak and won't do anything because he’s terrified of Grandpa!’”
“You were the one who threw Emma’s suitcase onto the porch and told her to walk to the gas station!”
“Now my friends from campus are texting me links to the local crime blotter!”
“Officer Harris posted a public community safety bulletin on the department’s verified page about a minor rescued from severe freezing conditions!”
“Someone commented with my name and a picture of Emma’s headset!”
“The dean of admissions from the technical college sent an email an hour ago stating my re-enrollment application has been flagged for character review!”
“Shut up! Both of you, shut your mouths!” Richard bellowed in a harsh, strangled whisper, glancing nervously at the diner waitresses who were already whispering near the cash register.
Richard’s chest ached with a sharp, persistent throbbing that he kept trying to rub away through his flannel shirt.
His entire universe had unraveled in less than fourteen hours.
The machine shop was dark and silent.
His life-estate residency on Maple Street had been revoked, and the front door was currently being fitted with a digital electronic smart lock by Daniel’s security contractors.
He had fifty-two dollars in physical cash inside his wallet, and his checking account was overdrawn by fourteen thousand dollars due to bounced vendor drafts.
“We are going to fix this,” Richard muttered, his voice trembling with an uncertain, desperate cadence.
“Daniel is my flesh and blood.”
“A man doesn't destroy his own father over a family squabble.”
“He is angry because Rachel got in his ear.”
“Rachel has always hated this family; she’s always thought she was superior because her father was a college professor.”
“She manipulated Daniel into sending those legal notices to frighten us.”
Denise grabbed Richard’s sleeve with frantic, digging fingers.
“Then call him, Dad!”
“Call Daniel right now from the diner’s payphone!”
“Tell him I don't have a place to sleep tonight!”
“The movers dumped all my furniture onto the sidewalk, and the forecast says it’s going to snow three inches by midnight!”
“My boutique is locked up!”
“Tell Daniel that if he doesn't call off his bloodhound lawyer Marcus Vance, I will lose everything I own!”
Richard pulled his arm away with a sudden burst of irritation.
“I already called his office four times, Denise!”
“The secretary won't put me through!”
“The firm sent a formal notice of representation stating that if any of us attempts to approach Daniel, Rachel, or Emma in person, an immediate emergency restraining order will be served by the municipal court!”
Cody let out a bitter, nervous snicker from beneath his fleece hood.
“You guys really thought you were kings, didn't you?”
“You really thought Uncle Daniel was just our personal ATM who would smile and take whatever garbage we dished out.”
“He’s an executive managing director of a private equity firm, Grandpa.”
“He deals with corporate sharks and hostile takeovers for breakfast.”
“You tried to flex on his daughter, and he just crushed us like bugs on a windshield.”
Before Richard could strike Cody across the table, the small television mounted above the diner counter flickered as the local afternoon news broadcast began.
The female anchor with stiff blonde hair looked soberly into the camera as a graphic appeared on the screen behind her: SUBURBAN CHILD ENDANGERMENT INVESTIGATION.
“Developing news out of Franklin County this afternoon,” the anchor announced crisply.
“Authorities have confirmed that an active criminal investigation has been launched into a prominent local manufacturing family following the midnight abandonment of a sixteen-year-old high school honor student.”
“According to preliminary police reports, the minor was forcibly ejected from a residence on Maple Street during sub-freezing temperatures without winter attire or communication devices.”
A blurred photograph of the house on Maple Street flashed onto the screen, followed by an official department statement from the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office.
“Prosecutor David Sterling confirmed moments ago that arrest warrants are currently being prepared for two adults residing at the address on charges of child endangerment and intentional neglect.”
Denise gasped, her face draining of all blood as she dropped her head onto the Formica table and began to hyperventilate.
The diner waitress who had served them their water walked over to the booth, her arms crossed over her apron, her eyes fixed coldly on Richard’s face.
“I think you folks need to pay your tab and get out of here right now,” the waitress said flatly.
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“We don't welcome people who leave children out in the snow.”
Richard looked up, his pride crumbling into pathetic, broken dust as the eyes of every customer in the diner burned into his back.
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