“Get him out!” she screamed to her security guards. “Remove him!” “Touch me,” I said to the guard moving toward me, “and I will sue you for assault on my own property.” The guard hesitated. He saw something in my eyes, that lawyer look, and he stopped. I turned to the crowd. “My name is Elias Thorne. Cynthia has told you I’m a trespasser. She’s told you I’m a threat. But what she hasn’t told you is that she’s selling your lake to a developer for a kickback.”
“Liar!” Cynthia shrieked. “He’s lying.” “And,” I continued, pulling the certified copy of the land patent from my jacket, “she hasn’t told you that she doesn’t have the right to sell it because she doesn’t own it.” I slammed the heavy document onto the table in front of the developer, Preston. “You might want to read that before you write her a check, pal.”
Preston picked it up. He read the first page. He flipped to the survey map attached to the back. His face went gray. He looked at Cynthia, then at me, then back at the document. “Cynthia,” Preston said, his voice shaking. “What is this?” “It’s fake. He forged it,” she yelled, but the panic was starting to crack her voice.
“It’s a federal land patent from 1872,” I announced to the room. “Verified by the state historian and the county clerk this morning. It supersedes the subdivision plat. It turns out when the original developers built this place, they cut corners. They built on land they didn’t own.” I turned to the crowd. “I own the lake. I own the roads you drove here on. I own the land this building sits on. And I own the land under Cynthia’s house.”
The silence in that room was heavy enough to crush a car. “You’re lying,” Cynthia whispered, the microphone picking up her tremble. “Am I?” I pulled out my phone. “I just got off the phone with the sheriff. He’s on his way. Not for me, Cynthia, for you.” “For me?” “Fraud,” I said, counting off on my fingers. “Embezzlement of HOA funds to pay for private security, accepting bribes from developers, and selling property you don’t own. That’s a felony, Cynthia, a big one.”
As if on cue, the doors opened. Sheriff Miller, the older brother of the deputy, walked in with two deputies. He didn’t look happy. “Cynthia Vance,” he said. “This is a mistake,” she wailed, backing away. “I am the president. You can’t touch me.” “Ma’am, we have a warrant for your arrest regarding the misuse of HOA funds and real estate fraud. Mr. Benny Davis gave a sworn statement this afternoon about the bribe you paid him.”
Cynthia looked at Benny, who was sitting in the third row, head held high for the first time in years. The look of betrayal on her face was priceless. They cuffed her right there on the stage. The duchess of Whispering Pines was led out past her neighbors, past the developer she tried to scam, and past me. She stopped for a second looking at me with pure hatred. “You ruin everything,” she spat. “No, Cynthia,” I said calmly. “I just caught the fish.”