Chapter 4 - A Dead Woman's Name
Tessa spread the loan packet across her office table. The second signature wasn't on the mortgage itself. It appeared on an old property-history affidavit Ashbrook had accepted as support for the chain of ownership.
My mother's name, June Morales, curled across the page in the neat handwriting I remembered from birthday cards. The affidavit had been dated eleven days earlier. Mom had been dead for nine years.
"They copied it," I said. "From something she signed when she was alive."
"Possibly. But whoever assembled this packet reached into your property records years back. That's preparation, not panic."
Tessa called Ashbrook's counsel, informed them the lien was disputed, and requested preservation of the complete loan file. She also filed a notice of suspected fraud with the county recorder and asked a judge for temporary protection against enforcement. None of it would undo the damage overnight.
"Could they take the house?" I asked.
"Not on a phone call or an email. But we move fast."
We drove to 18 Rowan Street so I could collect my mother's old records. The house looked perfectly ordinary in daylight. A neighbor was watering her geraniums. Someone's lawn sprinkler ticked in the distance.
In the hallway, I found a drawer pulled slightly open. My mother's original deed and handwritten home-repair ledger were missing.
"Ryan knows where you keep them?" Tessa asked.
"He helped me build the drawer."
I checked the camera app. The main hub showed a six-minute outage the previous afternoon, before Diane arrived. Then a local recording marker appeared at 6:14 p.m. Ryan had pulled the router plug, not the camera battery.
Tessa watched me rewind to the morning. A figure in a gray jacket entered the study with a document tube and left carrying my blue folder.
May you like
The figure turned toward the lens.
It was Diane.
