Chapter 5 - The House That Wasn’t Mine Anymore
My mother left me the house free and clear.
Red brick.
Three stories.
A narrow garden.
The terrace where I fell had been added before I was born.
I never mortgaged it.
Never transferred it.
But Adrian had just said Crown Meridian owned it.
That meant one thing.
The irony almost made me laugh.
Vivian asked:
“When did the transfer go through?”
“Last year.”
“And Hannah never saw it?”
“No.”
“How?”
Adrian sounded proud.
“Electronic notices went to the old account.”
The one I stopped using after marriage.
“And the signature?”
“Claire handled it.”
Not a confession to murder.
A confession to a financial crime connected to motive.
The house was worth nearly three million dollars.
Crown Meridian had then borrowed against it.
That money funded investments.
Insurance premiums.
Private transfers.
Claire’s apartment.
Adrian’s new life.
All while I believed I still owned the property.
My palm pressed the transmitter twice.
SECOND TIER CONFIRMED.
Marcus now knew to preserve every real-estate record.
Vivian said:
“If she wakes up, the deed becomes a problem.”
Adrian looked at me.
“If she wakes up, everything becomes a problem.”
He sat beside me.
For a moment, his face changed.
“I tried to make this easy.”
Vivian scoffed.
“Easy?”
“She could have signed the restructuring.”
Six months earlier, Adrian asked me to sign a “tax simplification package.”
I refused because the legal descriptions did not match.
He called me paranoid.
Vivian said:
“She forced us into this.”
That sentence almost broke my stillness.
Because I read before signing.
Because I questioned missing money.
Because I survived.
Then Adrian’s phone rang again.
This time it was not Claire.
The hospital’s front desk was calling.
“Mr. Mercer? There are two detectives asking to speak with you.”
Adrian stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
Vivian stared at him.
“Why are police here?”
May you like
He looked at me.
And suddenly neither of them believed I was helpless anymore.
