Chapter 6 - Breaking and EnteringThe Bearden commercial district was quiet on a rainy Tuesday night.
Eubanks & Associates Insurance sat in a modest brick strip mall between a dry cleaner and a tax preparation service. The glowing green neon sign of the office window cut through the wet pavement reflections.
We sat across the parking lot in Dan’s sedan for twenty minutes watching the storefront.
My father didn't keep late hours anymore. By seven o'clock, the office was entirely dark.
My heart felt like it was beating directly inside my throat as we crossed the wet asphalt. I pulled out my old childhood house key—which miraculously fit the back service door of my father’s office because he had never bothered to change the deadbolt since I was in college.
The brass key slid into the lock. It turned with a dry, metallic click.
We slipped inside into the smell of stale carpet, lemon Pledge, and old paper.
Dan clicked on a small penlight, shielding the beam with his hand so it wouldn't spill out through the front glass windows.
"Where does he keep active client files?" Dan whispered.
"Back office. Cabinet B," I answered automatically, remembering fetching papers for him when I worked summer reception jobs as a teenager.
We crept down the narrow hallway. Cabinets B was a heavy gray metal four-drawer filing system. I pulled out the second drawer marked L through R.
My fingers flew rapidly through the color-coded tabs.
Logan... Long... Lowe...
There it was. A thick manila folder labeled: LOWE, TESSA - RENTERS/AUTO.
I pulled it out, placed it flat on my father’s desk, and clicked on the penlight.
Inside were standard application forms, vehicle registration copies, and proof of payment receipts. But clipped to the very back was a handwritten pink phone message slip dated October 14.
My father’s handwriting, scrawled in black ink:
Tessa called at 9:15 PM. Confirmed keys picked up at the condo. Everything set for the 18th.
I stared at the slip of paper.
"What is that?" Dan whispered, leaning over my shoulder.
"A condo," I breathed, my pulse racing. "Tessa doesn't own a condo. She rents an apartment off Kingston Pike. What condo?"
I flipped to the next page—a printout of a property assessment search from the Knox County Assessor’s office.
The address listed on the property tax record wasn't an apartment complex. It was a gated lakeside townhouse development in Farragut.
And the name on the deed, registered under a private LLC: EUBANKS HOLDINGS LLC.
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My father owned a secret property twenty minutes outside town. And according to the utility transfer dates in the file, the electricity account had been opened last October.
Right around the time my father started going to the gym, buying new cologne, and disappearing on mysterious "insurance emergencies."
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