Chapter 14 - THE LAST CHANCE TO TELL THE TRUTH
Dylan took that chance badly.
Through counsel, he asked for a private meeting with Jane before any filing decisions became final.
Marcy advised against it unless she attended.
So we met in her office again, only this time Dylan looked less like an ambitious young man in a bind and more like a thirty-two-year-old who had finally discovered that documents do not care how charming you are.
He began with what he must have thought was humility.
“Mom, I’m sorry you got hurt.”
Jane looked at him steadily.
“That is not the sentence you owe me.”
His mouth tightened.
“I’m sorry I pushed too hard.”
“Still wrong,” she said.
He stared at her.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
It took a while.
Then he said it.
He knew the zoning hearing mattered.
He knew the restaurant story alone would not justify the transfer if we had time to think.
He knew the forged authorization form was sent.
He believed if the house moved into Harbor Point first, he could “sort everything else out later.”
“Later” was the word people use when they mean after the damage is irreversible.
Marcy laid out the practical choice. If Dylan, Kyle, and Jessica accepted responsibility, withdrew all claim, reimbursed Jane’s legal costs, and cooperated with the investigation, the prosecutor would consider that in any charging resolution.
Jane spoke before anyone else could.
“I’m willing to let the law do what it does. I’m not willing to pretend this was a family misunderstanding.”
Dylan cried then. Real tears. Late tears.
But even then, he asked the wrong question.
“So what happens to Emma?” he said.
Jane closed her eyes briefly.
“That should have mattered to you before you stood in my kitchen with transfer papers.”
He signed the civil withdrawal and cost agreement that day.
May you like
He did not avoid exposure.
He only made it impossible to stop.
