Chapter 12 - THE BUYER
I stepped outside with Maya on speakerphone.
Grant Bell didn't look embarrassed.
He looked annoyed.
"Mrs. Whitmore, I'm here under a signed purchase agreement."
"Signed by whom?"
"Your husband."
"My husband doesn't own this house."
Grant smiled thinly. "He represented that he had authority through his father."
Robert came onto the porch.
"He lied."
Grant's smile disappeared.
He handed me a copy.
Daniel had attached a power of attorney bearing Robert's signature.
A fake.
Not a good fake, either. The notary stamp belonged to a woman who had retired three years earlier.
Grant read my face.
"I put down a two-hundred-thousand-dollar deposit."
"To Daniel?" I asked.
He nodded.
Robert muttered, "Jesus."
Grant's anger shifted direction instantly.
"Where is he?"
"Ask your lawyer," Maya said through my phone. "And do not enter the property."
Grant left after photographing the recorded deed Maya emailed him.
An hour later, Daniel called me eleven times.
I answered the twelfth.
"You told him?" he shouted.
"You tried to sell my house."
"It was supposed to be mine!"
There it was.
Not regret. Ownership.
"Dad promised me this place when I was a kid."
Robert took the phone.
"I promised you I'd help you build a life. I didn't promise to let you steal mine."
Daniel went silent.
Then he said, "You chose her over your own son."
Robert's voice broke, but he didn't back down.
"No. You chose money over being my son."
He ended the call.
That night, police contacted Maya. Grant Bell had filed a fraud complaint. Between that, Robert's stolen funds, the forged loan papers, and the fake power of attorney, prosecutors were finally interested in more than a family dispute.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, at 2:13 a.m., the smoke alarm screamed.
I ran downstairs.
May you like
Flames were climbing the curtains in Robert's study.
And the back door was standing open.
