Chapter 1 - THE MAN OUTSIDE MY CAR
The first thing Daniel did after I left the restaurant was call me seventeen times.
The eighteenth call came from a number I didn't recognize.
I was standing beside Margaret's car when I answered.
“Mrs. Mercer?” a man asked.
“Who's calling?”
“My name is Evan Price, and I'm with the restaurant management team.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course Patricia had found another way to make her bill my emergency.
“I'm sorry to disturb you, but your husband told us you agreed to cover the private-room minimum.”
“I did not.”
“He says there's a written arrangement.”
Margaret held out her hand for the phone.
“Put him on speaker,” she whispered.
I did.
“Mr. Price,” Margaret said, “please preserve any documents that purport to contain my client's signature, and preserve your surveillance footage from tonight.”
Silence followed.
Then the manager said something that changed the air around us.
“The reservation form was signed three weeks ago.”
Three weeks ago was when I first discovered the missing transfers.
Daniel hadn't merely expected me to pay.
He had prepared to make it look as though I already had.
Margaret asked for the form to be sent to her office and ended the call.
I thought we would go to her guest apartment, where I had arranged to stay.
Instead, she pointed toward my car.
“Look beneath the driver's-side wiper.”
A folded sheet of paper waited against the windshield.
I pulled it free.
The words were printed in thick black capitals.
YOU CAN KEEP THE BUILDING OR KEEP YOUR PEACE.
YOU DON'T GET BOTH.
I looked over my shoulder.
The parking lot was full of shadows, valets, and expensive cars.
At its far edge a man wearing a brown jacket stood beside a dark pickup.
He was watching us.
When I raised my phone to photograph him, he turned away.
Margaret caught my wrist.
“Don't follow him.”
“Who is he?”
“I don't know.”
But the look on her face told me she was considering possibilities she didn't want to say aloud.
We drove toward her apartment in silence.
At a red light, my phone lit up with a message from Daniel.
You embarrassed my mother.
I read it twice.
There was no apology for the stolen money, the forged restaurant arrangement, or his laughter.
Only a complaint that I had embarrassed the woman who had humiliated me.
A second message arrived.
Come home now, before this gets worse.
I typed one reply.
Do not contact me except through Margaret about the legal proceedings.
A third message appeared almost immediately.
Then you should ask your lawyer what happened to your father's original deed.
My stomach dropped.
The deed was supposed to be in the fireproof box in our home office.
Margaret glanced at the message and turned the car around.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To my office,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because the copy your husband might have is less important than whatever he believes he can do with it.”
As we pulled into her building, an email notification appeared on her dashboard screen.
The subject line read: URGENT—MERCER PROPERTY TITLE.
Margaret opened it and went completely still.
“What?” I asked.
She turned the screen toward me.
Someone had submitted a request to record a new mortgage against my father's building that afternoon.
May you like
And the borrower named on the paperwork was me.
