The deputy glances at my father, at my mother’s bruised wrist I hadn’t even noticed before, at the child trembling in the corner.
“Outside,” he repeats.
Travis’s jaw clenches. For a second, I think he might run.
Then he sees the neighbors gathering. He sees the deputies. He realizes the whole town is watching.
So he steps outside.
They separate all of us.
A female deputy kneels beside Lucy, speaking gently. Lucy’s eyes fill with tears, but she nods and starts whispering things I can’t hear.
The other deputy questions my parents. They try to minimize everything out of habit, out of fear.
I pull out my laptop right there at the kitchen table and log into my banking app.
My heart pounds as I open fifteen years of transaction history.
Support payments. Month after month.
And then the withdrawals.
Patterns.
Transfers to Travis’s accounts. Payments at bars, hotels, electronics stores, even trips into the city.
My stomach turns when I see the total.
Not thousands.
Hundreds of thousands.
He didn’t just steal from us.
He built a life on my parents’ suffering.
When the deputies see the records, the whole tone shifts.
Travis is handcuffed in front of the house.