Chapter 2 - A Signature I Never Wrote
The younger mover stopped when he saw Emma in my arms.
"Ma'am, we're here for the Lawson property pickup," he said.
"We were told the house would be empty."
"You were told incorrectly," I answered.
His partner offered me the clipboard.
"We have authorization."
The first page listed furniture, paintings, rugs, and the walnut desk my father had built when he retired.
At the bottom sat an elegant imitation of my signature.
The sight made my skin cold.
I had signed a thousand documents in my life, but I never made the final stroke of the letter g that way.
Whoever had copied my name had practiced from something old.
"That's not mine," I said.
Eric reached for the clipboard.
"She's exhausted."
I pulled it back before he could take it.
"Then she can be exhausted while calling the police."
Diane made an irritated noise.
"You can't call the police over a misunderstanding."
"Watch me."
I photographed every page, including a bill of lading that described an empty residence and an owner's voluntary transfer of possession.
The address was right.
The authorization was not.
Ruth stayed on speaker while I called the nonemergency dispatch line and reported a suspected forged property-transfer document.
The movers stepped back immediately.
The younger one looked genuinely alarmed.
"We didn't know," he whispered.
"I believe you," I said.
"Please wait outside with your paperwork."
Eric followed them onto the porch and called his buyer.
He spoke low enough that I couldn't hear every word, but I caught two.
"She knows."
Those words landed harder than the eviction notice.
He hadn't made a mistake.
He had known there was something to hide.
Ruth asked me to retrieve the blue folder my father had kept in the upstairs safe.
I gave Emma's bassinet a quick, careful inspection, placed her inside, and positioned the monitor where I could hear her while I stayed on the phone.
Then I went upstairs with the bedroom door open.
The safe stood behind a painting of the marsh at sunrise.
My father had taught me its combination when I turned eighteen.
The folder was inside, exactly where it belonged.
But beneath it I found something that wasn't.
A recent photocopy of my driver's license lay across the trust documents.
A handwritten sticky note sat on top.
It said: USE CURRENT PHOTO.
The ink was purple.
Diane always used purple ink.
I photographed the note before touching it, then heard the front door open downstairs.
Eric was calling someone into my house.
"The originals are upstairs," he said.
"You can take them before she makes another scene."
May you like
I closed the safe, locked the bedroom, and heard unfamiliar footsteps climbing the stairs.
