Chapter 4 - What Was Taken From My Floor
I called Naomi from the hallway without touching anything else.
She told me to walk outside, lock the door, and wait.
Twenty-five minutes later, a Portsmouth deputy pulled into the driveway.
Naomi arrived ten minutes after him.
The deputy's name was Ellis.
He was younger than me and careful enough not to make promises.
He photographed the scratches, the lifted board, the broken edge of the closet baseboard, and the torn envelope corner.
"Any idea what was here?" he asked.
"No."
"Valuable?"
"Maybe only to me."
He looked at the handwriting.
"Who is Robert?"
I looked toward the front window.
"My father."
Ellis stopped writing for a moment.
Naomi answered the next question before he asked it.
"There is active civil litigation over this property."
Ellis nodded slowly.
"That makes this more interesting."
"It makes it more urgent," Naomi said.
We found no broken windows.
No forced exterior door.
Whoever entered had either used a key or knew how to get inside without leaving obvious damage.
Only three people had ever been given keys by my grandfather.
Me.
My father.
And Ryan.
The deputy wrote that down too.
At the back of the house, he found a partial tire impression near the shed.
The ground was too dry for a full tread, but one edge showed clearly in a patch of mud beneath the outdoor spigot.
"Truck," he said.
That did not narrow much in my family.
Dad owned a truck.
Ryan owned two.
Half of Portsmouth owned one.
Ellis gave me a case number and told me not to stay alone in the farmhouse until the locks were changed.
I almost told him I had slept in worse places with worse company.
Instead, I thanked him.
Naomi waited until the patrol car left.
"Your grandfather expected your father to try something."
I looked at the torn words again.
"Apparently."
"Did he ever talk to you about the property after the will?"
"Only once."
"What did he say?"
I closed my eyes and searched through a memory more than fifteen years old.
Granddad had been sitting on the porch with a glass of iced tea balanced on his knee.
I had just told him I had been accepted into the Navy scholarship program.
He had smiled in a way my father never did.
Not proud because I had done what he expected.
Proud because I had done what I wanted.
Then he had looked toward the house.
"This place is yours someday, Evie."
I had laughed.
"Dad will love that."
Granddad's smile had disappeared.
"Your father loves ownership more than responsibility."
At nineteen, I had not understood what he meant.
Now I did.
I told Naomi.
She looked toward the upstairs window.
"Your grandfather knew something."
"And somebody removed whatever he left before I could read it."
"Maybe."
I turned to her.
"What does maybe mean?"
"It means people hide copies."
That evening, I called the locksmith, installed two battery cameras, and drove back to Norfolk with the torn envelope sealed in an evidence sleeve Deputy Ellis had given me.
At home, Knox paced until I sat down.
He settled against my leg.
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number appeared.
STOP DIGGING.
Nothing else.
I took a screenshot and sent it to Naomi.
Thirty seconds later, she called.
"Do not reply."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Save the message."
"Already did."
"Good."
"Naomi."
"Yes?"
"My mother said Dad didn't start this."
There was a pause.
"You didn't tell me that."
"I am now."
"Exact words?"
"Your father didn't start this."
"Then the Ryan intake sheet matters more."
"I know."
"Still do not call him."
"I know."
The next morning, Kessler produced the original deed.
Not a copy.
The paper was yellowed around the edges as though someone had tried to make it look older.
The ink was blue.
The notary seal was embossed.
Naomi arranged for a forensic document examiner named Dr. Helena Ward to inspect it under controlled conditions.
Ward spent three hours with the deed.
She used magnification, oblique light, and instruments I did not pretend to understand.
At the end, she removed her gloves.
"The paper is consistent with commercial stock available in 2018."
My heart sank slightly.
She noticed.
"That does not mean the document was created in 2018."
"What does it mean?"
"Only that the paper could have existed then."
She pointed to the notary seal.
"This impression is more useful."
Naomi leaned closer.
"Why?"
"Because the seal contains a commission number."
Ward enlarged a photograph.
The tiny digits were visible beneath Linda Harrow's name.
"That number did not belong to Linda Harrow."
I stared at her.
"Who did it belong to?"
"A notary commissioned in 2024."
Naomi's face went still.
"Name?"
Ward checked her notes.
"Derek Paul Carter."
I felt something cold move down my spine.
"Carter?"
Naomi looked at me.
"Relative?"
I shook my head automatically.
Then a memory surfaced.
A Christmas dinner.
Ryan at seventeen, talking about a cousin who worked at a title company.
Dad telling him to learn from people who understood paperwork instead of wasting time on football after high school.
"Second cousin," I said.
"On my father's side."
Ward continued.
"The seal body appears to have been altered."
"Linda Harrow's name was inserted into the stamp face, but the commission number remained."
"So someone used Derek's current seal to imitate a dead notary," Naomi said.
"That is consistent with what I see."
My phone buzzed on the table.
Ryan's name appeared on the screen.
For one second, nobody moved.
Naomi looked at me.
"Speaker."
I answered.
"Hello?"
Ryan did not say hello.
"You need to stop."
His voice was older than I remembered.
Rougher.
Tired.
"Stop what?"
"Whatever you're doing with the deed."
"You recorded it."
Silence.
"Who told you that?"
"The county intake sheet."
He swore under his breath.
Naomi wrote something on a legal pad and turned it toward me.
KEEP HIM TALKING.
I looked at the words.
"Why did you take it to the courthouse, Ryan?"
"Dad asked me to."
"Where did he get it?"
"I don't know."
"Who is Derek Carter?"
The line went completely quiet.
I heard traffic in the background.
Then Ryan spoke again.
"You talked to Derek?"
"No."
"Don't."
"Why?"
"Because you don't know what you're stepping into."
My anger finally broke through.
"Someone forged my name."
"I know."
The room stopped.
Naomi's pen froze above the paper.
I gripped the phone.
"Say that again."
Ryan breathed heavily.
"I said I know."
"Did you forge it?"
"No."
"Did Dad?"
"No."
"Mom?"
"No."
"Then who?"
He did not answer.
"Ryan."
"Listen to me."
His voice dropped.
"The house is tied to more than the lawsuit."
"What does that mean?"
"It means if you win, somebody loses a lot more than a farmhouse."
"Who?"
Another long silence.
Then he said the sentence that changed the entire case.
May you like
"The bank."
The line went dead.
