“Call them when they open.”
CHAPTER 3 – Where the Money Went
By morning, the bruise had settled into a dark crescent.
I stood in the bathroom holding a tube of concealer. Then I put it back in the drawer.
David met me at his office at nine. The closing company had already sent him the release they had relied upon, along with the payment records I had authorized him to request on my behalf.
My name curved across the bottom of the document.
Almost right.
The M was too careful. The last stroke climbed upward, something my wrist hadn’t comfortably done since I broke it eight years earlier.
A notary’s stamp sat beside it.
“Terrence Vale,” I read.
David nodded.
“The man they owe?”
“We need to establish that. The closing company is preserving its file.”
I looked at the date. Six weeks earlier, I had been at Ruth’s kitchen table helping her choose a photograph for her sister’s memorial program.
I remembered arguing gently for the picture with the ridiculous sunhat.
Someone had been signing away my savings while we laughed through Ruth’s tears.
David turned another page.
The sale price had been six hundred twenty thousand dollars, but their mortgage, fees, and other legitimate closing deductions had taken a substantial portion. There had never been six hundred twenty thousand dollars in cash for them to spend.
“The boutique investment was made before the sale,” he said. “Marcus told me that this morning.”
“He called you?”
“I told him to get his own attorney. He still volunteered some information. I won’t advise both of you.”
The three hundred thousand dollars, Marcus now claimed, had come from their savings and borrowing against Birchwood Lane. Selling the house had been their attempt to outrun the bills.
It made their desperation clearer.
It made the suitcases worse.
They had planned to land in my house after deliberately removing my right to repayment.
At noon, an unfamiliar number called.
“Mrs. Whitcomb? This is Stephanie Bell.”
I put her on speaker with David’s permission.
“I heard my shop’s name is being used. Marcus called and asked me to confirm an investment.”
“Did they invest three hundred thousand dollars?”
The silence had a sharp edge.
“No. Delaney lent the business twelve thousand. We signed a note. I’ve made every payment.”
David leaned forward.
“Do you have the agreement and bank records?”
“Yes. And the proposal she asked me to put together last spring. But the larger investment never happened.”
Her breath caught.
“She told me Marcus turned it down.”
That afternoon, Marcus came to David’s office with an attorney whose name I didn’t know. His collar was buttoned crookedly. He sat opposite me and kept his hands beneath the table.
Delaney had declined to come.
Marcus admitted forging my signature. He said Terrence, an acquaintance of Delaney’s who arranged private loans, had supplied the form and stamped it without my presence.
“Did Delaney know it was my signature?” I asked.
“No. She knew there was a release. I told her you agreed.”
The question on the porch returned to me, stripped of its surprise.
Whose signature did you forge?
She had understood what he was capable of before I did.
“And Stephanie?”
He pulled his hands into view. His nails were bitten raw.
“Delaney handled that investment.”
“You never asked for statements?”
“She showed me statements.”
His attorney touched his sleeve, and he stopped.
David explained that any restitution would have to be documented. No private promise would erase the assault report or the disputed release.
Marcus looked at me then.
“If I get the money somehow, could you say you forgot signing?”
Ruth, sitting beside me, drew in a breath.
For a moment, I could hear the clock in David’s reception area through the closed door.
“You’re asking me to lie.”
“I’m asking you to help.”
“You asked me for help when you bought your house.”
His eyes filled.
