Doc said they don't automatically prove financial coercion. We need paperwork. Bank statements showing money moving without Walter's knowledge or consent. And ideally, we need Walter himself in a room telling a lawyer everything he told us today. Cole was quiet for a long moment, staring at the folder without really seeing it.
He's terrified, Cole said finally. You didn't see his face. Derek's got him convinced that speaking up gets him locked away somewhere far worse than where he already is. Then we make him feel safe enough to speak up anyway, Preacher said. That's easier said than done, Cole muttered.
But even as he said it, something else was working behind his eyes. The detail Walter had let slip and then swallowed back down. Long time ago, that was a different man. 50-some years of service redirected benefits a classified flag on an old military record that even Doc's usual channels couldn't fully crack open. Doc Cole said that military file dig harder.
I told you it's sealed tighter than anything I usually run into. Dig anyway. Cole said something tells me Walter Hayes has got more buried in his past than an abusive nephew. Yeah. The next morning, Cole rode alone to the small rental house on the edge of town where Walter had been living. if living was even the right word for it.
The place was barely more than a shack paint peeling a single window covered with a bed sheet instead of curtains. Derek owned the property Doc had discovered, which meant Walter's very shelter was one more leash Derek held. "Walter answered the door, slowly blinking against the morning light, surprise flickering across his face at finding Cole standing there. You didn't have to come, Walter said, stepping back to let him in out of some old ingrained sense of hospitality that clearly hadn't been exercised in a long time. The inside of the house was sparse to the point of aching a single cot, a folding chair, a small table with nothing on it.
No photographs, no decorations, nothing that spoke of a life lived only a life endured. "You don't have much," Cole observed quietly. Don't need much," Walter said, though the flatness in his voice suggested otherwise. Cole's eyes swept the small room and landed on an old wooden box shoved half under the cot, its surface scarred with decades of handling. "What's that?"
Cole asked. Walter's whole body tensed. "Nothing, Walter. It's nothing." Walter repeated more firmly this time, moving to block Cole's path toward the box with a speed that betrayed exactly how much it mattered.
Cole held up both hands, backing off immediately. All right. All right. It's yours. I won't touch it.
Walter's shoulders sagged slightly with relief, though his eyes stayed wary, darting between Cole and the box like he expected the truce to be temporary. I came to ask you something, Cole said, changing course deliberately. About getting that power of attorney revoked, about taking your life back from Derek. Walter's face went through several expressions in quick succession, hope, fear, exhaustion, and finally something like resignation. "I don't have money for a lawyer," Walter said.
"You don't need money. I know people. Bikers who know lawyers." Walter's tone carried the faintest thread of dry humor. The first hint of it Cole had seen from him.
"You'd be surprised," Cole said, allowing himself a small smile. "Preacher's cousin does elder law. Does it pro bono for cases like yours? Sometimes all we need is you in a room willing to tell the truth. Walter's humor evaporated as fast as it had appeared.
And if Derek finds out before it's finalized, if he gets to me first, he won't get the chance. Cole said, "Not while you're with us." Walter studied him for a long searching moment. Something calculating and cautious behind those tired blue eyes, like a man who had trusted the wrong people too many times to trust easily again. Why?
Walter said finally. Are you doing all this? You don't know me. I'm nobody to you. Cole considered the question seriously before answering something in his own past rising up unbidden.
A memory of his mother, small and silent and afraid, standing in a kitchen doorway while a man twice her size loomed over her. And nobody, not one single person in that whole town had ever stepped in to stop it. because somebody should have stepped in a long time ago for people I used to know," Cole said quietly. "And I wasn't in a position to do it then. I am now." Walter's eyes glistened, and for a moment, neither man said anything at all.
"All right," Walter finally whispered. "I'll do it. I'll talk to your lawyer." Something in Cole's chest loosened just slightly. "Good.
That's good, Walter. But you have to promise me something," Walter said, his voice suddenly sharp with urgency. If this goes wrong, if Derek finds a way to twist this against me, you have to promise you won't let him take me somewhere. A home. Anywhere I can't leave.
"I promise," Cole said. And he meant it with a weight that surprised even himself. There you go. 2 days later, Preacher's cousin, a sharp, no-nonsense woman named Diane Reeves, who specialized in elder law, met with Walter at the clubhouse, the neutral guarded location Cole had insisted on, rather than anywhere Derek might think to look. Diane listened for over an hour, taking notes, occasionally asking pointed questions that made Walter flinch, but never actually broke him down.
By the end of the meeting, she had a legal pad full of details, and her expression had gone grim in a way that told Cole this was worse than even he had suspected. "This isn't just financial exploitation," Diane said afterward, pulling Cole aside while Walter rested in another room. This is textbook elder abuse, coercive control, isolation, physical intimidation, financial theft, all of it. I can file for an emergency revocation of the power of attorney based on what he's told me, but I need more than testimony. I need documentation.
Doc's been working on the financial trail, Cole said. Bank records, transfers. Get me everything he's got, Diane said. And soon, because the second Derek smells a legal challenge coming, he's going to move fast to protect himself. And that might mean moving against Walter directly.
Cole's jaw tightened. How fast are we talking? Days, Diane said. Maybe less. That fear proved justified faster than any of them expected.
Two days later, Emily called Cole's phone in a panic, her voice shaking so badly he could barely make out the words at first. "He's gone," she said. "Walter's gone." I went to check on him this morning like I've been doing and the door was open and everything's everything's thrown around inside Cole. It looks like there was a struggle.
Cole was already moving before she finished the sentence, shouting for Preacher and Tiko boots hitting gravel at a dead run toward his bike. Call Doc. Cole barked over his shoulder. Tell him to pull every property Derek owns. Every single one.