Chapter 3
I sent the second document to Detective Ruiz and called Martin immediately.
This time, he answered.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“From a file Conrad’s office delivered after your father died.”
“The date is three months after Dad’s death.”
“I saw that.”
“Then why was it in my paperwork?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
I wanted to believe him. Martin had handled my father’s affairs for twenty years. He had eaten dinner at our table when I was a boy.
“Did you see me sign the page giving Vivian authority over my house?”
“No. Conrad brought several pages back after you and Elena left. He said you’d completed them earlier.”
“And you accepted that?”
Martin didn’t answer quickly enough.
“I should have called you,” he said.
I ended the call before my anger reached Noah in the next room.
Elena found me standing by the apartment window.
“What did he say?”
“He let Conrad add pages to the file.”
She pressed her lips together. “Can they sell our house?”
“Not if we stop them.”
“Daniel. Can they?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She looked exhausted. We both were. Still, she stood beside me while I called a lawyer who had no connection to my family.
Her name was Priya Desai. Daniel, she told me, get her every version of every document, then don’t sign another thing until she had checked it. She said she could move quickly to challenge the transfer.
I liked that she asked what Elena thought. The house belonged to both of us. In Martin’s office, people tended to speak only to me.
By noon, Priya had discovered that a sale had already been arranged.
The buyer was a company controlled by Conrad Bell.
Vivian had planned to sell our house to him for far less than it was worth. The paperwork was set to close the next day.
“Why this house?” Elena asked.
We sat around Priya’s conference table while the children colored in the next room with her assistant.
“That’s what I’m trying to learn,” Priya said.
The estate included offices and rental buildings worth far more. Vivian could have tried to steal from any of them. Instead, she had pushed us to buy this old mansion, overseen its remodel, and hidden Noah beneath its floor when he heard her plans.
Priya obtained an emergency order blocking the sale while ownership was reviewed. She also contacted the title company with the forged documents.
When Conrad’s lawyer called to protest, Priya took the call in front of us.
“My clients purchased the property,” she said. “They didn’t authorize this transfer. You’re welcome to explain the discrepancy to Detective Ruiz.”
She listened for a moment.
“No. Tomorrow’s closing will not happen.”
I felt my shoulders drop for the first time in two days.
The relief lasted until Ruiz called. Officers had gone to Conrad’s office. He was gone. His assistant said he had left early after receiving a call from Vivian.
Ruiz asked me what I knew about the mansion before we bought it.
“Dad lived there as a child,” I said. “It was sold before I was born.”
“Vivian told you it had come back on the market?”
“Yes.”
“Who was the seller?”
I searched my memory. The purchase had been handled through an agent. Vivian introduced us.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Priya can help you find out.”
An hour later, she did. The seller was another company tied to Conrad.
He had sold us the house, then planned to buy it back through Vivian.
“Did we pay more than he did?” I asked.
“Considerably,” Priya said.
Elena pushed her chair back. “Why bring our children into a house they wanted back?”
I had no answer.
That evening, I visited my father’s old office with Priya and Ruiz. The building manager let us in. Vivian had been there earlier in the week, but the security record showed Conrad had entered that morning.
Dad’s office smelled faintly of the coffee he used to drink. His desk had been cleared after the funeral. I remembered Vivian insisting we let her handle it.
Priya asked the manager for the storage inventory. One item was listed as a metal document case from the mansion. Vivian had collected it two months earlier.
I showed Ruiz.
“Could that be why they wanted the house?” I asked.
“Maybe. What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
The manager had one more record: a maintenance request Dad filed years earlier, before Conrad sold the mansion to its previous owner. It mentioned water damage in a cellar beneath the west side of the house.
I pictured Noah shivering beneath the living room floor. The space we found him in was near the west wall.
“There’s more under that house,” I said.
Ruiz was already calling her team.
We drove there together. Police had sealed the living room, and a technician was working near the open panel. He showed us a rough plan from the remodel. The shaft beneath the rug connected to a crawl space that ran toward the old cellar.
“Can you reach it?” Ruiz asked.
“From here, yes. We’re checking it now.”
I stayed upstairs with Priya. I could hear the officers moving below us.
A few minutes later, one called out.
Ruiz went down and returned holding a dust-covered metal box.
It was locked.
May you like
On its lid, someone had scratched two letters.
V.C.
