Chapter 3 - The Lie Behind the Suitcases
The first person to move was Carter.
He stepped between Douglas and me.
It happened so naturally that Douglas noticed it before Carter did.
“Back up,” my son said.
Douglas laughed bitterly.
“What are you going to do?”
“I said back up.”
There was no shouting.
No threat.
But Carter finally looked like the man Warren had always believed he could become.
Douglas took one step away from the island.
Rita covered her face.
“I told him not to do it.”
“Rita!” Douglas snapped.
“No.”
She stood.
“I’m finished lying.”
Kendall stared at her mother.
“What are you talking about?”
Rita looked devastated.
“You didn’t know.”
That surprised all of us.
Douglas had copied my signature from a Christmas card.
He had scanned it, adjusted it on his computer and added it to the financing package.
The private lender had not yet funded the loan because they needed independent verification of title.
That was why Douglas had become desperate to move into my house.
Residence would make the story look more believable.
Family photographs.
Mail.
Personal property.
A bedroom.
Anything that helped create the appearance that this was already a shared family residence.
I felt cold.
“You weren’t planning to stay temporarily.”
Douglas said nothing.
Rita answered for him.
“He wanted six months.”
Kendall spun toward her father.
“You said a few weeks.”
“You would never have agreed otherwise.”
Carter stared at his wife.
“You brought them here without knowing any of this?”
Kendall’s eyes filled with furious tears.
“I knew about the foreclosure. I knew Dad was trying to find financing. I did not know about forged documents.”
That should have made things better.
Somehow it didn’t.
“You still threatened Mom with the kids,” Carter said.
Kendall looked at him.
“I was trying to keep my family together.”
“My mother is family.”
“And what about mine?”
“No one said they weren’t!”
His voice rose.
“You told my mother she could either let your parents move into her house or lose her grandchildren.”
Kendall flinched.
I watched my son finally hear the ugliness of the sentence spoken aloud.
Douglas grabbed one suitcase.
“We’re leaving.”
Malcolm blocked the kitchen doorway.
“Not with those documents.”
Douglas stared at him.
“They’re mine.”
“Some appear to contain fraudulent representations involving my client.”
Douglas’s face reddened.
“You can’t confiscate my property.”
“I’m not confiscating anything. Donna can preserve documents abandoned inside her home, and I strongly advise nobody destroy anything.”
The word destroy changed Douglas’s expression.
Only for a second.
But Malcolm noticed.
So did I.
Carter did too.
“What else is in that box?”
Douglas grabbed the carton.
Carter held the other side.
“Let go.”
“Carter.”
“Let go.”
The bottom tore.
Documents spilled across my heart-pine floor.
Loan applications.
Printed emails.
Contractor estimates.
Photographs of my home.
And architectural sketches.
I bent to pick one up.
It was a floor plan.
My floor plan.
Every bedroom had been labeled.
Douglas + Rita.
Harper.
Miles.
Carter + Kendall.
Guest.
Then I saw the ground floor.
My study had been crossed out.
My bedroom too.
A handwritten note beside the downstairs den read:
DONNA - TEMPORARY SUITE.
I looked at Kendall.
She stared at the page, confused.
“I never saw that.”
Douglas said nothing.
Carter picked up another sheet.
A contractor’s proposal.
Kitchen renovation.
Primary bedroom conversion.
Exterior deck modifications.
Estimated project value: $186,000.
And under CLIENT AUTHORIZATION appeared a name none of us expected.
Not Douglas.
Not Kendall.
Carter Whitmore.
My son’s signature appeared again.
May you like
But this time Carter didn’t say it was forged.
He just closed his eyes.
