Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE DIANE NEVER OWNED

I spent the night at Noah's apartment with an ice pack against my face.

Ryan called fourteen times.

On the fifteenth, I answered.

"Come home."

"No."

"You attacked my mother."

"You hit me."

"You embarrassed me, Claire."

That was the sentence that ended something inside me.

Not I'm sorry.

Not Are you okay?

You embarrassed me.

I hung up.

At 7 a.m., Mom placed an old blue folder on Noah's kitchen table.

"The deed," she said.

The address was Ryan's family estate.

Owner: Carter Family Holdings LLC.

I looked at her. "You own their house?"

"Your father and I bought it eleven years ago when Frank and Diane were facing foreclosure."

Frank was Ryan's father. He had died six months earlier.

"Why didn't I know?"

"Frank begged us not to tell Ryan. He was ashamed."

Noah pulled county records onto his laptop.

"Mom, there's a problem."

Three months earlier, someone had filed documents claiming Carter Family Holdings had dissolved. A replacement deed transferred the estate to Diane.

The paperwork carried my signature.

I had never signed it.

The notary was Evan Shaw, Ryan's attorney.

My stomach turned.

Then Noah opened another file.

"This was filed the same week."

My late father's twenty-eight percent voting interest in Carter Logistics had been transferred from our family trust.

To Ryan.

Again, my signature appeared at the bottom.

Again, it was fake.

I called Ryan.

"Did you take my father's shares?"

A long silence.

Then: "Come home and we'll talk."

"Answer me."

"It's complicated."

"No. Forgery is simple."

"Evan handled the paperwork."

"But you used the shares?"

Ryan exhaled. "Your family wasn't doing anything with them."

I gripped the phone.

"You stole something because I wasn't using it?"

"I needed collateral for the hotel expansion."

"You borrowed against my father's company?"

"Claire, be careful."

"With what word? Steal?"

He hung up.

Noah looked at Mom.

"What?"

She whispered, "Frank knew."

Then her phone rang.

A hospital records clerk said Ryan had requested Frank's final visitor log.

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And asked the hospital to delete one name before sending it.

Mine.