Chapter 2 - THE NOTARY WHO DIED THREE YEARS AGO
Aunt Carol’s words hung in the dining room like smoke.
She retired three years ago.
I looked at the digital copy of the deed release on my phone. The stamp was clear. It was dated yesterday.
"Carol," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Are you sure?"
My aunt adjusted her glasses. Her hands were trembling. She had worked in real estate law long enough to know exactly what we were looking at.
"Rebecca, I'm positive. Her name was Diane Halloway. She didn't just retire. She passed away last spring."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Forging a signature was a crime. Forging a public notary’s seal—using the stamp of a dead woman to illegally erase a ninety-four-thousand-dollar debt—was a felony.
I looked at my mother.
She was staring at the tablecloth, her face the color of ash. She wasn't acting defensively anymore. She was terrified.
"Mom," I said, my voice shaking. "Did you forge my signature?"
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
"Don't answer that, Mom!" Leah suddenly shouted, stepping between us. She looked at me, her eyes wide and panicked. "Becca, you’re scaring her. She’s seventy-two years old, her heart can’t take this."
"Her heart?" I stepped toward my sister. "Someone just committed real estate fraud to steal my life savings, and you’re worried about her heart?"
"It’s a mistake," Leah stammered. "The county office must have made a clerical error."
"Clerical errors don't forge signatures, Leah."
Emma, my seventeen-year-old daughter, was still standing by the table, her phone in her hand. She had been quietly watching my sister.
"Aunt Leah," Emma said softly. "If it's a clerical error, why are your hands shaking?"
Leah shoved her hands into her pockets. "I'm upset! My sister is attacking our mother on her birthday."
"I'm not attacking her," I said. "I'm asking a question. Who stamped this document?"
Mom finally looked up. Her eyes were filled with tears.
"Rebecca, please," she whispered. "If you call the police, they’ll take everything."
"They'll take the house?" I asked.
Mom shook her head slowly.
"No," she said, her voice breaking. "They'll take Leah."
My breath caught in my throat.
I looked at my sister. Leah wasn't crying anymore. She was backing away toward the hallway.
"Mom, shut up," Leah hissed.
A reversal hit me like a physical blow. Mom hadn't forged the document to protect the house for Leah. Mom was covering for Leah, who had forged it herself.
"You did it," I said to my sister. "You found Diane Halloway's old stamp. How?"
Leah’s ex-husband, Mark, had worked as a paralegal at a downtown firm. He had handled Diane's estate when she died.
"You stole the stamp from Mark's office," I realized aloud.
"I didn't steal anything!" Leah cried out. "Mom said she was going to leave me the house! I was just making sure it was clear! You have plenty of money, Becca. You didn't need that ninety-four thousand!"
"That was my retirement, Leah! I took out a second mortgage on my own home!"
"You'll make it back!" she screamed. "You always make it back! You're the strong one, remember?"
Aunt Carol stood up. She reached for her purse.
"I can't be here for this," Carol said quietly. "Margaret, I love you. But I am an officer of the court. If I stay in this room, I am legally obligated to report this."
Carol walked out the front door. The lock clicked shut behind her.
I looked at my mother.
"You knew," I said. "You knew she committed a felony, and you were going to let her steal my money."
Mom reached out for my hand. I pulled it away.
"She was desperate, Rebecca," Mom cried. "She needed a clean title to get the new loan."
I froze.
The dining room suddenly felt freezing cold.
"What new loan?" I asked.
Mom looked confused. "The loan she took out on Tuesday. For the renovations."
I turned slowly to my sister. Leah was backing toward the front door.
"Leah," I said, my voice dead and flat. "How much did you borrow against Mom's house?"
Leah grabbed her coat from the chair.
"Two hundred thousand dollars," Leah whispered.
Then she opened her purse, pulled out a thick, sealed envelope with the bank's logo on it, and threw it onto the dining room table.
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"And I don't have a single penny of it," she said.
TITLE: THE BANK ENVELOPE ON THE TABLE
