“You’ve been served.”
Before I could ask another question, he walked away.
Dean stared at the envelope.
I opened it.
And nearly laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes shock leaves the body with nowhere else to go.
The papers concerned my house.
My house.
The one my husband and I had bought thirty-eight years earlier.
According to the documents, a company called Harbor Ridge Holdings claimed it had a secured financial interest connected to the property.
Dean read the name.
His face changed.
“That’s the company from your card.”
I nodded.
Then I saw a signature.
My signature.
Except I hadn’t written it.
I sat down.
For the first time that evening, I felt genuinely afraid.
Because someone wasn’t simply spending my money.
Someone had been preparing to take my home.
The police officer who came that night was named Officer Ramirez.
He photographed the documents, took copies of the statements, and told us not to contact Priscilla until investigators could determine what had happened.
Dean called her anyway.
She didn’t answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
By midnight, he had called twenty-three times.
At 12:17, she finally sent one text.
You don’t understand.
Dean showed it to me.
“Ask her to explain.”
He did.
No response.
I canceled my trip.
My suitcase remained beside the closet.
Christmas was four days away.
By morning, I had learned that Harbor Ridge Holdings wasn’t a bank.
It was a private lending company.
The documents suggested that $96,000 had been borrowed using my property as collateral.
I stared at that number until it stopped looking like money.
Ninety-six thousand dollars.
My husband, Arthur, and I had spent twenty-seven years paying off that house.
He used to joke that the final mortgage payment deserved its own birthday cake.
When it arrived, we opened a bottle of champagne at the kitchen table.
Arthur died three years later.
Now someone had apparently dragged our home back into debt without my knowledge.
My attorney, Margaret Bell, arrived shortly before noon.
She had been my friend for twenty-two years.
Margaret read the paperwork twice.
Then a third time.
“This signature is forged?”
“Yes.”
“And you never appeared before this notary?”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Not good that it happened. Good that you’re certain.”
She pointed to a name.
Elaine Mercer, Notary Public.
“Do you know her?”
“No.”
Dean leaned forward.
“I do.”
Margaret and I looked at him.
He swallowed.
“She works with Priscilla.”
Silence.
“Where?”
“At the real-estate office.”
I felt sick.
Priscilla was a real-estate agent.
Suddenly she had access not only to my personal information but also to people who understood property documents, loans, signatures, title records.
Margaret closed the folder.
“Sylvia, we’re going to treat every document as potentially fraudulent.”
