Now I knew exactly why she was asking.
If they were willing to fake this document… what else had they already tried to take?
I looked at the deputy. “I need a copy of that document.”
Tiffany stepped forward. “That’s private.”
I looked her straight in the eye and for the first time that afternoon, I smiled.
“No. It has my name on it.”
“And we’re about to find out exactly how much of my life you’ve been planning to steal.”
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The deputy’s thumb stayed pressed to the bottom of that page.
He didn’t hand the folder back.
He turned it slightly, so the light from my front window hit the signature.
My signature, but not my hand.
The loop on the M was too perfect. Too round. I have arthritis in my right hand. My M has always had a small, sharp hitch where my thumb catches.
This one didn’t.
Tiffany’s hand was still outstretched, palm up, fingers twitching.
The deputy didn’t look at her. He looked at me.
“Ma’am, do you have a recent document with your actual signature on it? Something with a date?”
My throat was dry. I could hear the ticking of the hallway clock, the one Robert wound every Sunday.
“My checkbook,” I said. “In the kitchen drawer. My property tax check from last month.”
Tiffany’s mother made a small sound. “This is humiliating. Margaret, you’re making a scene over paperwork you asked us to handle.”
The deputy, a man in his forties with tired eyes and a name tag that read R. Alvarez, finally glanced at Tiffany.
“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to step back from that folder.”
Tiffany’s smile thinned. “Am I being accused of something? By a confused elderly woman who can’t even remember inviting us to live here?”
Alvarez didn’t answer. He flipped to the second page in the folder.
And his expression changed.
His eyebrows pulled together. He turned to his partner, a younger deputy standing near the doorway who had been quietly watching the movers freeze in place, one still holding a lamp halfway off the truck.
“Take a look at this,” Alvarez said, his voice lower.
The younger deputy stepped forward. I leaned in.
