Chapter 7 - THE NOTARY IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
At nine the next morning, David and I met at his Memphis office.
Maya came with me because I was afraid that if I went alone, I would start pretending things were less serious than they were.
David spread three pages across a conference table.
The first was the emergency bank notice.
The second was the deed showing me as sole owner.
The third was a copy of a notarized authorization bearing my name.
I recognized the signature.
It looked like mine at a glance.
But the second letter in Ross slanted upward.
I never wrote it that way.
“That is not my handwriting,” I said.
David nodded.
The signature was dated Friday at 3:14 in the afternoon, in Nashville.
At 3:14, I had been presenting a design package to clients in Memphis.
The meeting software had recorded the session.
My clients had signed the contract at 3:22.
We could prove where I was.
David pointed to the notary seal.
The name was Martin Keene.
Maya searched her phone and turned it toward us.
Martin appeared in a photograph beside Oscar at a charity golf event.
The two men had their arms around each other's shoulders.
“I know him,” she said.
“He does closings for Oscar's business.”
David didn't smile.
“That is a lead, not proof of wrongdoing.”
He filed a formal request with the bank's fraud unit and advised me to report identity theft to the appropriate authorities.
Then he called a title company he trusted to check for any pending instruments against the property.
While we waited, my office manager, Felicia, called.
A courier had arrived at the studio carrying a package addressed to Luke Ross.
She hadn't signed for it.
“Why would he send mail to my business?” I asked.
Felicia hesitated.
“He told the courier yesterday that he was authorized to collect financial documents for you.”
My mouth went dry.
“Do not give him anything.”
“I didn't.”
She lowered her voice.
“Hannah, someone was here Friday asking whether you were in Nashville.”
“Who?”
“A man in a gray suit.”
“Did he leave a card?”
“No, but I think the security camera caught him.”
David leaned toward the phone.
“Please preserve that footage.”
After the call, he folded his hands.
“This was planned before the dinner.”
I'd suspected as much.
Hearing another person say it made me feel as if a floorboard had vanished under my feet.
Then the title company called back.
There was no transferred deed.
But someone had submitted an electronic request for a certificate of title, using an email address that began with my first name.
It wasn't my email address.
The remaining characters belonged to a domain I had never seen.
David wrote it down.
The next message on his phone arrived from Vance at the bank.
A document reviewer had flagged the notary certificate.
May you like
And the reviewer had discovered a second applicant listed in a restricted portion of the file.
