Chapter 4 - THE SIGNATURE HE FORGOT I COULD PROVE
Andrew looked down at the blue folder as though he had only just remembered he was holding it.
Then he moved it behind his leg.
The gesture would have been almost funny if my life had not been sitting on the dining room table in photographs and forged documents.
"What's going on?"
He asked.
I stared at him.
"You tell me."
His gaze shifted to Elias.
"Who are you?"
"Elias Grant."
Elias offered no hand.
"Private investigator."
Andrew's face tightened.
"Get out of my house."
"It isn't your house," I said.
He turned toward me.
"Claire, not now."
"Especially now."
Lorraine stepped in quickly.
"She has been impossible all day."
I looked at her.
"You threw a pot at my head."
Andrew closed his eyes briefly.
"Mom said it slipped."
"Did she also tell you it struck the headboard six inches from my face?"
"I wasn't there."
"Exactly."
"Can everyone calm down?"
That sentence had been Andrew's favorite tool for seven years.
He used it whenever the truth threatened to require a decision.
He did not say Lorraine was wrong.
He did not say I was wrong.
He simply asked reality to lower its voice.
"No," I said.
He blinked.
"What?"
"No one is calming down so you can avoid answering questions."
I lifted the kissing photograph.
"Who is Vanessa Hart?"
His eyes flickered.
"A client."
Elias spoke for the first time.
"Do you kiss all your clients at lake houses?"
Andrew rounded on him.
"You need to leave."
"He stays," I said.
"Claire."
"He stays."
Andrew put his overnight bag on the floor.
"Fine."
He tried to sound offended rather than frightened.
"Vanessa and I became close."
"How close?"
He looked at the table.
"I was going to tell you."
"When?"
No answer.
"Before or after you sold my cottage?"
His eyes snapped toward mine.
That reaction told me Elias had been right.
"I wasn't selling anything."
"Then what's in the blue folder?"
His hand tightened around it.
"Work documents."
"Put them on the table."
"No."
"Then leave."
"You don't get to order me out of my own home."
I took the original deed from the green folder and placed it between us.
"My name."
Then the separate-property acknowledgment.
"Your signature."
His face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
He remembered the document.
That was the first moment all afternoon when I knew with certainty that I still possessed something he had built his plan around me forgetting.
"That doesn't mean what you think it means," he said.
"It means exactly what it says."
"Marriage changes things."
"Fraud changes things too."
I slid the copy of the loan application toward him.
"Did you use my Social Security number to apply for this?"
He did not touch the paper.
"Where did you get that?"
"Answer me."
"I asked where you got it."
"Did you use my Social Security number?"
"We're married."
"That is not an answer."
"We share finances."
"That is also not an answer."
Lorraine stepped forward.
"Stop interrogating him like a criminal."
I looked at her.
"Then he should stop leaving criminal-looking paperwork everywhere."
Andrew's jaw tightened.
"You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Then explain the quitclaim deed."
Silence.
It was sudden and complete.
Lorraine looked at Andrew.
Andrew looked at the table.
Elias looked at both of them.
I felt the room become smaller.
"What quitclaim deed?"
Andrew asked.
His voice was too controlled.
"The one recorded fourteen months ago that supposedly transferred this house to you."
He inhaled once.
"Oh."
One syllable.
One devastating syllable.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
"Oh?"
I repeated.
"I thought you were talking about something else."
"How many forged property documents are there, Andrew?"
"Nothing was forged."
"I never signed a quitclaim deed."
"You signed a stack of refinancing papers last year."
"No, I didn't."
"Yes, you did."
"Where?"
"At home."
"What date?"
He hesitated.
"I don't remember."
"Who notarized it?"
"I don't remember."
"Who prepared it?"
"Claire, this is ridiculous."
"Who prepared it?"
"I said I don't remember."
Elias leaned against the back of a chair.
"County records will."
Andrew shot him a look.
"You don't work for my wife."
"No."
"Then stay out of my marriage."
Elias's expression hardened slightly.
"I was hired to investigate financial misconduct connected to your employment."
The blood drained from Andrew's face for the second time that evening.
Lorraine turned toward him.
"What is he talking about?"
It was the first question she had asked that sounded genuine.
Andrew ignored her.
"You need to contact my attorney."
"If your attorney contacts my client, they'll respond."
"You had no right to come here."
"I came because documents bearing your wife's identity were attached to transactions my client is reviewing."
Andrew looked at me.
"You gave them access to our finances?"
I laughed once.
"You are actually trying to blame me for an investigation I learned about twelve minutes before you walked in."
"I don't know what you've been doing behind my back."
The irony was so enormous that I almost admired it.
"You drove to my cottage with your mistress and a real estate broker."
"Vanessa isn't my mistress."
"Then what is she?"
He rubbed his forehead.
"I was going to leave."
The words hurt less than I expected.
Maybe because I had already watched him kiss her on paper.
Maybe because the marriage had ended in my mind before he said them.
"When?"
"Soon."
"After the loan closed?"
"This isn't about money."
"Everything on this table says it is."
I pointed toward the blue folder.
"Put it down."
"No."
"Andrew."
"It's none of your business."
"If it concerns my property, my identity, or my money, it is absolutely my business."
He stepped backward.
Elias straightened.
"Mr. Parker, you probably shouldn't destroy or remove documents connected to an active corporate investigation."
"I'm not destroying anything."
"Then leave the folder."
Andrew looked toward the foyer.
For one second, I thought he might run.
Not metaphorically.
Actually run.
Lorraine saw it too.
"Andrew, give her the papers."
He turned to his mother.
"Stay out of this."
Lorraine recoiled.
He almost never spoke to her that way.
The shift told me something important.
Whatever was inside that folder frightened him more than disappointing her.
I reached for my phone.
"I'm calling Rachel Monroe."
Andrew's head snapped toward me.
"The estate attorney?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I want a certified copy of every property document connected to the house and cottage before anything else gets filed."
"Claire, don't do that."
I stopped.
It was the first time all day he had asked rather than ordered.
"Why not?"
"Because you're upset."
"Try again."
"Because this can still be handled privately."
"Try again."
His face tightened.
"You're going to blow up both our lives over paperwork you don't understand."
"Then help me understand it."
I held out my hand.
"The folder."
He stared at me.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Lorraine reached for the folder.
"Just give it to me, Andrew."
He jerked it away from her.
The top sheet slipped free.
It fluttered to the hardwood floor.
I saw my name before Andrew could cover it with his shoe.
Claire Morgan-Parker.
Authorization.
Collateral.
Signature.
I stepped forward.
"Move your foot."
"No."
"Move your foot."
"Claire."
I raised my phone.
"I am recording now."
His expression sharpened.
"Turn that off."
"No."
"This is my house too."
"Not according to the deed you signed at closing."
"That document is outdated."
"Then show me the legitimate document that replaced it."
He did not move his shoe.
I switched the phone camera toward the floor.
"You are standing on a paper bearing my name while refusing to let me see it."
"You sound insane."
"And now that's recorded too."
Lorraine stepped between us.
"Enough."
She reached for my phone.
I moved back.
"Do not touch me."
"Stop filming my son."
"Do not touch me."
She lunged again.
Elias moved sideways, not touching her, but blocking her path.
"Ma'am."
"Get away from me."
Andrew suddenly bent, snatched the loose page from the floor, and shoved it into the blue folder.
Then he turned toward the foyer.
I followed.
"Where are you going?"
"Out."
"Leave the folder."
"No."
"Then I'm calling the police."
He stopped at the front door.
"For what?"
"For the pot, for starters."
Lorraine gasped behind me.
"You wouldn't dare."
I looked at Andrew.
"And I will tell them I have reason to believe documents bearing my forged signature are being removed from the property."
Andrew stared at me.
The man I had married had always looked soft around the eyes.
That softness was gone.
"You really want to make me your enemy?"
The question chilled me more than shouting would have.
"I think you made that decision before I knew there was a choice."
He opened the door.
Then my phone rang.
The screen displayed Rachel Monroe.
I had texted her twenty minutes earlier.
I answered immediately.
"Rachel."
"Claire, I pulled the county record you asked about."
Her voice sounded tense.
"Are you somewhere private?"
I looked at Andrew.
"Private enough."
"The quitclaim deed exists."
"I know."
"No, you don't know the worst part."
My stomach tightened.
"What is it?"
Rachel exhaled.
"The notarization date is March 18 of last year."
I frowned.
Then the date struck me.
March 18.
I knew exactly where I had been.
I had worked a seventeen-hour emergency response after a multi-car pileup on Interstate 90.
My ambulance GPS, radio logs, patient care reports, and hospital badge records would show my location from before sunrise until nearly midnight.
I had not been home.
I had not met a notary.
I had not signed anything.
"Rachel," I said quietly.
"I can prove I wasn't there."
There was a pause.
"Good."
"Why?"
"Because the notary listed on the deed is Kevin Parker."
Andrew closed his eyes.
I knew the name.
Kevin Parker was Andrew's cousin.
He had attended our wedding.
He had eaten Thanksgiving dinner at our table twice.
And three months after the forged deed was recorded, he had sent me a handwritten thank-you note for lending Andrew money to help him through what Andrew called a temporary business slowdown.
Rachel continued.
"Claire, there's something else."
"What?"
"The deed wasn't the only thing recorded that day."
I looked at Andrew.
His hand tightened around the blue folder.
"There is a second filing tied to your property."
"What kind of filing?"
May you like
Rachel's answer made Andrew reach for the door before she even finished the sentence.
"A mortgage lien for two hundred and forty thousand dollars."
