Arthur Garrick wasn’t a man who used subtlety when he felt threatened. I braced for the legal assault, the cease-and-desist letters from high-powered corporate lawyers, the studio-backed public smear campaign. What came instead was far more insidious, a direct strike at the heart of my personal life.
The call came mid-morning, while I was immersed in cross-referencing my father’s old studio files with the “Ghost_FX_04” posts. My phone vibrated with an unknown number. I answered, expecting another junk call.
“Mr. Garrick? This is Cedar Crest Care Facility. Regarding Martha Vance.” The voice on the other end was clipped, professional, and held a hint of practiced sympathy.
Martha. My heart clenched. Martha Vance, our beloved housekeeper, my childhood nanny. Seventy-eight years old now, fragile but sharp, the closest thing to a grandmother I had. She’d dedicated her life to our family. Arthur had promised her a comfortable retirement, full medical care, after my father died.
“Is she alright?” I asked, my voice tight with immediate concern.
“Physically, yes, for now,” the administrator said. “But her private pension stipend, the one covering her specialized medical care? It was terminated this morning.”
My breath hitched. “Terminated? By whom?”
“Garrick Family Trust,” the administrator replied, the formal tone unwavering. “We received a direct notice citing a sudden revision of trust assets. We regret to inform you, Mr. Garrick, but without immediate payment, we cannot continue her 24-hour care.”
A cold, venomous rage bloomed in my chest. Arthur. It had to be Arthur. He wasn’t going for my film; he was going for my heart.
“What’s the balance?” I demanded, my hand shaking slightly as I pulled up my online banking app.
“Eighteen thousand five hundred dollars for the next month alone, Mr. Garrick,” she said, reciting the precise figure with chilling efficiency. “Plus a new, non-negotiable deposit of five thousand.”
My liquid savings weren’t vast. Most of my resources were tied up in this documentary, in the years of legal fees and private investigator costs. But Martha… Martha was family.
“I’ll pay it,” I said, my voice strained. “Send me the invoice. The full amount.”
I immediately initiated the transfer, watching the significant chunk vanish from my account. It was a brutal reminder of Arthur’s reach, his willingness to leverage human collateral. He wasn’t just trying to stop my exposé; he was trying to break me. He was trying to drain my resources, my emotional bandwidth, to force me into a corner.
Later that afternoon, I called Damon Cross, my old child manager, now a cynical industry handler who always seemed to know everything. He answered on the second ring, his voice wary.
“Damon. Arthur cut Martha’s pension,” I said, without preamble.
A long silence stretched on the line. Then, Damon sighed, a weary sound. “I heard. He’s been moving aggressively on a lot of fronts. Not just yours.”
“What fronts?” I pushed.
“Old staff,” Damon replied, his voice a low rumble. “People who knew your father. People who knew the truth about Soundstage 4. He’s been buying them out, silencing them for years.”
My blood ran cold. “Silencing them how?”
“Non-disclosure agreements, severance packages. Or, in Martha’s case, cutting off their support,” Damon elaborated. “He’s terrified, Julian. More than I’ve ever seen him.”
He was terrified, but he was also ruthless. He wasn’t just going after the film. He was coming for every memory, every connection I had, twisting it into a weapon. Martha was the only living witness to my earliest childhood, the years before the fire, the years before my memory fractured.
If I couldn’t protect her, if I couldn’t protect anyone, what was this fight for? The weight of it pressed down on me, a chilling premonition of how far Arthur was willing to go.
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