"He'll never agree to that."
"Then we'll see him at trial, and I'll bring Channel 9 with me."
Two days later, the escalation I'd been dreading finally came.
I got a call from Tyler, my son, at 6:00 p.m.
He was 23, working as a line cook in Fort Collins while finishing his culinary degree.
His voice was shaking.
"Dad, someone came to the restaurant."
My blood went cold.
"What happened?"
"This guy in a suit said he was a private investigator looking into you. Asked my manager if I was reliable, if you'd ever been violent, if there were incidents he should know about."
Tyler's breathing was ragged.
"Dad, my manager pulled me aside after and asked if there's something I need to tell him. I could lose my job."
I closed my eyes.
"What was the investigator's name?"
"He gave me a card. Thomas Brennan, Apex Investigations."
I wrote it down.
"Tyler, listen to me. Don't talk to him again. If he comes back, tell him to contact my attorney. I'll handle this."
After we hung up, I called Lydia, got her voicemail, left a message that probably sounded unhinged.
She called back at 8:00 p.m.
"I know. They hired a PI to dig up dirt. It's textbook intimidation."
"He went to my son's workplace. He's trying to get Tyler fired."
"And it's witness tampering, which is a felony."
Her voice was ice.
"Forward me that business card photo. I'm filing an emergency motion tomorrow morning."
But the hits kept coming.
January 23rd, I got an email from the IRS.
Notice of audit.
They were reviewing my tax returns from the past three years, citing irregularities reported by a third party.
There were no irregularities. I was a W-2 employee with simple taxes.
This was harassment, pure and simple.
I forwarded it to Lydia.
She called immediately.
"They're burning bridges now. This is what happens when rich people panic. They throw money at problems until the problems go away."
"It's working. I can't afford an IRS audit on top of everything else."
"You won't have to. The IRS complaint is anonymous, but we can subpoena Apex Investigations' client records. If we prove the Whitmores filed a false IRS report, that's another felony."
She paused.
"Dakota, they're making mistakes. Desperate people always do."
January 25th, the mistakes got worse.
Someone leaked the Ridgeline Heights sales contracts to a Boulder real estate blog.