Chapter 18 - SUSAN’S REASON
Susan agreed to a deposition.
She arrived in pearls.
Perfect hair.
Cream blouse.
The same controlled elegance she wore while Dad knelt on my floor.
Rebecca’s colleague asked why she told Dad I might lose my house.
“Because Kyle told me that.”
“Did you believe Chloe was detained?”
“I believed she faced professional trouble.”
“Did Kyle say detained?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Did you tell Norman Chloe could lose her house if he refused to sign?”
“I may have.”
“Why?”
“To encourage him to help his daughter.”
Dad sat beside me listening.
Susan never looked at him.
Then came the money.
“Did you receive $400,000 related to the bridge-loan proceeds?”
“Bennett Family Holdings did.”
“Do you control that entity?”
“Yes.”
“Did those funds pay debt secured by your condominium?”
“Yes.”
“Were you at risk of losing the condominium?”
Susan paused.
“Yes.”
There.
Motive.
Her late husband had left substantial wealth.
Most disappeared through bad investments and loans to Kyle’s company.
Her condo was the last property she owned outright.
When Sonoran Crest began failing, she borrowed against it to help Kyle.
She told herself it was temporary.
Everyone in this family loved that word.
Temporary.
Then Kyle needed more.
Susan risked Dad’s farm because she was terrified of losing her own home.
Understanding did not soften what she did.
It made it uglier.
“You looked down on Norman,” Rebecca’s colleague said.
Susan bristled.
“That’s not relevant.”
“Did you call him a country bumpkin?”
“No.”
“Did you say Chloe married beneath her family?”
“No.”
Heather’s texts said otherwise.
Susan complained that Dad “smelled like feedlots.”
That he was “embarrassing.”
That he should be grateful Kyle was “saving his land from irrelevance.”
Her contempt was real.
But there was another reason she provoked me.
Kyle had asked for “conduct documentation.”
Susan admitted she knew he wanted evidence I was volatile before the separation.
“Did you intentionally kick the food basket?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“Because Chloe was entering?”
“Yes.”
“Did you expect her to become angry?”
“Yes.”
“Did you expect her to put a rag in your mouth?”
“No.”
Fair.
My response exceeded whatever she anticipated.
Then came the twist.
Susan insisted the black drive still existed.
“You said it was lost.”
“My attorney misunderstood.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Kyle.”
Kyle’s attorney objected.
Susan turned toward her son.
“He told me he’d destroy it.”
The room changed.
Kyle stared at his mother.
“You’re lying.”
Susan finally looked frightened.
“No.”
“When?”
“The night Chloe called me.”
Kyle shook his head.
“I never got it.”
One of them was lying.
Maybe both.
But if Susan was telling the truth, Kyle had personally taken possession of evidence after a preservation dispute began.
May you like
That moved the missing drive from family drama toward possible obstruction.
📖 Susan admitted provoking Chloe to build Kyle’s “unstable wife” record and claimed she gave the missing black drive directly to Kyle to destroy. 👇
