The next few months were hard for everybody.
The Virginia Real Estate Board’s investigation took until March. They found Holloway Residential’s escrow account was short $214,600 in tenant security deposits.
Derek’s broker license was suspended for two years. He was ordered to restore every dollar to the escrow account. Holloway Residential was placed under the supervision of a court-appointed receiver until every tenant’s deposit was accounted for.
Three tenants filed a lawsuit in Richmond General District Court. Their lawyer was a young woman from Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.
To cover the shortfall and the legal fees, Derek and Vanessa had to sell their house in the West End. The big colonial on River Road with the three-car garage. It sold in February for $1.1 million. After paying off their mortgage and the Capstone loan, there was barely enough left to restore the escrow account.
They moved into a rented townhouse in Glen Allen.
Vanessa took a leave of absence from her brokerage. Her managing broker told her it was “for the best” until things settled down.
She didn’t call me for three months.
Kyle called me the week after Thanksgiving. He was crying.
“Mike,” he said. “I’m so sorry. She told me you were broke. She told me you were embarrassed and didn’t want anybody bringing it up. I believed her. I didn’t even call you to check.”
“It’s okay, Kyle.”
“It’s not okay.” I heard him take a shaky breath. “I was sitting right there at that birthday dinner. She came back to the table and said you’d decided not to come. And I didn’t even text you to ask why.”
“You’re asking now,” I said.
That’s the thing I kept learning, that whole winter. Every person who believed Vanessa’s story had one thing in common.
None of them ever asked me.
On December 12th, I closed on the three buildings at Cary and Robinson.
The closing was at Denise’s office. Luca came with his daughter, Gianna, who flew up from Sarasota. Rosa couldn’t make the trip.
We signed the deed. The settlement statement. The twenty-year commercial lease for the restaurant space. Atlantic Union Bank wired the funds at 11:42 a.m.
Luca’s hands were shaking when he signed his name the last time.
“Forty-one years,” he said. He looked out the window of Denise’s office toward Cary Street. “My grandmother would be proud. The recipes stay.”
“The recipes stay,” I said.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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