Chapter 6 - SOMEONE ENTERED MY APARTMENT
I hadn't given Luke an Atlanta key.
I had given him an emergency contact card and the number of the building manager, nothing more.
Still, the photograph on my phone showed the brass handle clearly enough to recognize a pale scratch beneath the lock.
Maya wanted to drive there immediately.
David told us to stay where we were.
“Your property matters,” he said, “but so do you.”
He arranged for the building's on-call manager to check the unit and preserve its access logs.
At 1:37 in the morning, the manager, Mrs.
Bell, called from the hallway outside my door.
“No forced entry,” she reported.
“Any sign someone came inside?”
“The electronic maintenance lock records a service override yesterday afternoon.”
“Who authorized it?”
“That's the question we're trying to answer.”
She promised to seal the log and ask security to retain corridor video.
I couldn't stop looking at the photograph.
The angle was wrong for someone standing in the public hallway.
It was taken from inside the apartment.
I asked Mrs.
Bell to enter with another employee present.
She found the living-room lamp on, an empty water glass beside the sofa, and my blue storage binder missing from the bookshelf.
The binder contained renovation receipts and tax correspondence.
It did not contain my deed, but it could tell someone how much I'd paid to improve the property.
“Is anyone there?” I asked.
“No one now.”
The word now made the room around me feel smaller.
David instructed Mrs.
Bell to document everything and contact local police about suspected unauthorized entry.
By dawn, I had slept no more than twenty minutes.
Maya brewed coffee and made toast neither of us ate.
At seven, she showed me a social-media post from Chloe.
It was a photograph of a luxury lakeside house with a caption about dreams finally coming true.
Oscar had commented with a row of champagne glasses.
I thought about the millions on the loan application.
They weren't desperate people seeking medicine or groceries.
They were shopping with my name.
At 8:16, Luke texted.
“Are you coming to apologize or what?”
I forwarded the message to David.
Then I replied with a sentence he had approved.
“I will discuss property matters only in the presence of my attorney.”
Luke answered immediately.
“Don't turn family business into a legal circus.”
Five minutes later, Brenda called from an unfamiliar number.
I did not answer.
She left a message telling me Chloe had already measured the bedrooms in Atlanta.
“You can act stubborn,” she said, “but a wife doesn't make these decisions by herself.”
The final words weren't spoken by Brenda.
A man in the background said, “Tell her the paperwork is already recorded.”
I knew that voice.
It belonged to Oscar.
But the county property office showed no recorded transfer when David searched it.
May you like
Oscar was either lying, or he was referring to something we had not yet found.
