Chapter 4
Grace asked me to bring every document I could find connected to the investment house.
Ellis drove me home with Camille.
Marcus was at work, or said he was. I had told him when I would collect my things and asked him not to be there.
I did not enter like a woman returning from a fight.
I entered like someone checking a place she no longer understood.
My wedding photograph stood on the mantel.
I left it there.
Upstairs, I packed clothes, medication, my passport, and the small wooden box containing my mother’s jewelry.
Then I opened the study cabinet.
Several folders were missing.
The property file remained, but it held only old invoices and a copy of the original purchase agreement.
Camille photographed the cabinet before we touched anything else.
Ellis stood near the doorway.
“Do you want to keep looking?”
“Yes.”
I found the closing paperwork in a drawer beneath Marcus’s desk.
It was mixed with business brochures.
A page bearing my name caught my eye.
The signature looked like mine.
It was not mine.
I knew the difference in the capital N. I had written it the same way since school, a loop Marcus used to tease me about.
This one was sharp and straight.
I sat on the floor.
“He copied it.”
Camille crouched beside me.
“Let Grace examine it.”
“I know.”
I slipped the page into the folder without marking it.
There were other papers. A loan disbursement statement. A contractor invoice. A transfer into an account under Marcus’s consulting business.
The renovation was supposedly waiting for supplies.
The money had already moved.
My phone rang.
Marcus.
I answered because I wanted him to know I had found the file.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At home.”
“I told you not to go through my office.”
“It’s in my house.”
“Nia, don’t start.”
“I found the closing papers.”
He went quiet.
Then he said, “We need to talk in person.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand the arrangement.”
“I understand I didn’t sign.”
“We discussed using the equity.”
“We discussed a budget. That is not permission to sign my name.”
Camille watched me carefully.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Please. If you bring lawyers into this, they’ll take everything.”
“They’re helping me find out what happened.”
“I did it for us.”
“Tasha lived there.”
He said nothing.
I ended the call.
We left with my bags and the documents.
In the car, Ellis asked whether I wanted food.
The question was so ordinary that it nearly made me cry again.
“Yes,” I said.
We stopped for sandwiches. I ate half of mine and realized I had not been hungry until someone asked.
The next day, Grace received the lender’s complete file.
There were copies of my identification, an electronic signature record, and a notarized document claiming I appeared in person.
On the date listed, I had been at a design conference in Atlanta.
My attendance was easy to prove. I had flight records, a hotel booking, photographs, and a presentation scheduled during the closing.
Grace did not promise the loan would vanish.
She explained that the lender would investigate, that my interest in the property needed protection, and that police might need to review the apparent forgery.
I told her to begin.
That afternoon, Tasha sent me a message.
Can we meet somewhere public? I found something you should see.
We met in a café near Ellis’s house.
Tasha wore jeans and a cream sweater. She looked exhausted.
She placed printed messages on the table.
Marcus had told her he was buying out my share. He had said I demanded more than the house was worth and that his mother was helping him handle the closing.
One message included a photograph of Diane sitting at a desk beside the loan documents.
I stared at it.
“She sent him your identification,” Tasha said. “That’s what he told me.”
My stomach turned.
“I kept a copy at her house after we traveled together,” I said.
Tasha lowered her eyes.
“I thought everything was legal. I thought you had agreed.”
“Why did you keep these?”
“Because he kept changing dates. First he said the divorce was final. Then he said it would be final soon. I started saving things because I couldn’t keep up.”
I understood that impulse too well.
“Did you give him money?” I asked.
Tasha’s face changed.
“Twenty thousand.”
“For what?”
“A share in his consulting business. He said it would help us start our life.”
I sat back.
The affair was real.
May you like
So was the deception.
And both of us had paid for the future he promised separately.
