PART 2

My father tried to explain that they had been invited.

The sheriff asked, “By the owner?”

My father said, “She’s my daughter.”

“That wasn’t the question,” the sheriff replied.

I sent the officer my deed, title, purchase records, and the email I had already filed.

Everything was in my name.

By late afternoon, everyone left. The sheriff gave them a choice: leave voluntarily or receive a formal trespass warning.

They left.

But I knew my father. He never accepted losing control.

The next morning, I drove to the lake house.

The front door was slightly open.

My cameras had all gone offline at 3:17 a.m.

Inside, the refrigerator had been emptied. On the counter was an envelope with my name written in my mother’s handwriting.

Inside was one line:

“If you want your house to stay yours, stop acting like it belongs only to you.”

Under the note was an old key.

My father had kept a copy.

Then I heard a sound upstairs.

Footsteps.

I called the sheriff quietly and told him someone was inside my house. Then I went upstairs.

My father, mother, and Kyle were in my bedroom.

“Finally,” my father said, as if I had been the one keeping them waiting.

“You broke into my house,” I said.

Kyle shrugged. “We had a key.”

“You disabled my security system.”

Dad said they had come to “fix” the situation. Mom said the house was wasted on me because I barely used it.

There it was.

I had something they wanted, so they believed they deserved it.

I told them to leave.

Dad refused.

So I pressed the emergency button on my phone.

A loud recorded warning echoed across the property:

“Unauthorized occupants detected. Authorities have been notified.”

Then tires crunched over the gravel outside.

The sheriff had arrived.

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