Chapter 3 - Changing the LocksI slammed the front door behind me and threw the heavy deadbolt, sliding the safety chain into place for good measure.
Inside, the house was a disaster zone of premature occupation. My pristine white kitchen counters were already littered with open bags of potato chips, half-empty soda bottles, and grocery bags from a wholesale club I never shopped at. On the living room sofa, my plush throw pillows were tossed on the floor, and a damp towel had been flung carelessly over the arm of my reading chair.
They had treated my home with absolute disrespect in less than twelve hours.
I didn't waste time crying. Exhaustion was a heavy blanket draped over my shoulders, but adrenaline was burning hot and clean in my veins.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed a local locksmith whose number I had saved in my contacts ever since I bought the property.
“Hey, Marcus, it’s Arden Voss,” I said when he answered on the second ring. “I need an emergency re-keying on my lake house out on Cove Road. All exterior doors, plus the detached garage padlocks.”
“Emergency re-keying, Arden?” Marcus asked, recognizing my voice immediately. “Everything okay?”
“Not even close,” I said grimly. “Some unauthorized squatters managed to get copies of my keys. Can you be here in thirty minutes?”
“I’m wrapping up a job in Cornelius right now. I can be at your driveway by 9:15.”
“See you then.”
I hung up and immediately set to work. I grabbed a massive black contractor trash bag from the pantry and began systematically sweeping up their debris. Potato chips, opened cereal boxes, half-eaten pastries—into the bag it went. I gathered their scattered clothes from the living room floor and dumped them onto the front porch outside the door like discarded laundry at a Motel 6.
Ten minutes later, heavy footsteps pounded on the front porch, followed by frantic, furious pounding on the wooden door.
“Arden! Open this door right now!” my father’s voice roared from the porch, muffled by the solid oak. “Have you lost your absolute mind? Your mother is out here crying! The neighbors are going to hear you acting like a lunatic!”
I ignored him. I walked over to the kitchen window and watched through the blinds.
My father was pacing back and forth on the porch, his face bright red, while my mother stood nearby dabbing her dry eyes with a tissue. Keaton was leaning against the railing, smoking a vape and shaking his head in disgust.
“Arden Marie Voss, you open this door this instant!” my mother shrieked, her voice pitching up into nails-on-a-chalkboard territory. “You are punishing us because you’re miserable! You’ve always been bitter that your sister settled down and you ended up an old maid living with hospital germs!”
That sentence—the casual, weaponized cruelty of calling me an old maid because I chose a career of service instead of settling down with some mediocre hometown boy—sealed their fate.
Every shred of guilt I might have felt evaporated into thin air.
I walked back to the kitchen island, crossed my arms, and waited.
At 9:12 AM, Marcus’s van rolled down the gravel driveway, kicking up dust before parking right behind my father’s Ford Expedition, effectively boxing them in.
Marcus stepped out of his van, a tool belt slung around his waist, looking confused as my father immediately intercepted him, shouting that he was the owner of the property and demanding Marcus leave.
I unlocked the front door and pulled it open just wide enough to step out onto the porch, leaving my family standing there in stunned silence.
“Marcus,” I said loudly, cutting through my father’s rant. “Over here. These are the doors that need re-keying.”
Marcus blinked, looking between my father’s apoplectic face and my calm, exhausted expression. He had known me for years; he knew I was the sole name on the deed.
“You got it, Arden,” Marcus said smoothly, grabbing his drill and key-pin kit from his belt.
“You can’t do this!” my father screamed, lunging forward, though Marcus deftly stepped past him toward the front entrance. “She’s trespassing on family property! I demand you stop!”
“Sir, unless your name is Arden Voss, I take instructions from the homeowner,” Marcus said professionally, stepping inside the house and pulling the heavy oak door shut right in my father’s face, leaving the three of them stranded on the porch.
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Through the frosted glass of the door, I could hear my father swearing at the top of his lungs and my mother pounding her fists against the wood in despair.
I stood in my foyer, surrounded by the quiet hum of my own refrigerator, and took my very first peaceful breath in twenty-four hours.
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