Chapter 8 - Reaping the Storm
karma has a way of returning to the coast on the same tide it went out on.
In the spring of the following year, a heavy northeast storm hit Virginia Beach. It wasn't catastrophic, but it caused localized flooding and power outages. I was sitting in the cozy office of the Baylight, reviewing our summer booking ledger—we were fully booked three months in advance—when the local news displayed on the desk TV caught my attention.
A fraud investigation in Virginia Beach had culminated in the arrest of a local financial advisor and his associates for operating an illicit offshore investment scheme targeting elderly churchgoers.
The screen flashed the mugshots. Among them was Marlene Harper.
It turned out that after the judge ordered the audit of Marlene’s accounts during our custody battle, state investigators found a trail of fraudulent transactions. Marlene had taken the money Travis drained from my account—along with life savings from several members of her Bible study group—and invested it into a fraudulent real estate scam that had completely collapsed.
Travis had put his name down as a co-signatory on several of those fraudulent loans to buy out a failed sports bar franchise. He was facing bankruptcy, civil litigation, and potential accessory charges. They had lost the house in Virginia Beach to foreclosure.
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I sat back in my chair, looking at the television screen. I felt no joy in their downfall, nor did I feel pity. The toxic world they had created out of greed, malice, and cruelty had simply burned itself to the ground.
They had called me a burden. They had called my hand useless. But while they were busy destroying their own lives out of vanity, I had used my broken hand to build a sanctuary that no storm could tear down.
