Chapter 3 - THE MISSING DEED
The empty folder erased my exhaustion.
I held it up.
“Where is the deed?”
Caleb stopped halfway into the office.
“What deed?”
“The original deed to this house.”
Ron appeared behind him.
I saw his eyes flick toward the folder.
There.
That tiny movement.
That was all I needed.
“You took it.”
Ron scoffed.
“Why would I take your deed?”
“My question exactly.”
“This is paranoid.”
I stepped toward him.
Pain stabbed across my abdomen, but anger kept me upright.
“Get out of my house.”
“It’s Caleb’s house too.”
“No.”
The word surprised him.
Because Ron had never bothered learning something important about the property he had apparently been renting out.
I had purchased the house two years before marrying Caleb.
The mortgage and title remained entirely in my name.
Caleb contributed toward utilities and household expenses, but the property had always been legally mine.
I watched Ron process that.
“You told everyone this was Caleb’s house, didn’t you?”
His jaw tightened.
Caleb looked confused.
“Dad?”
Ron walked away.
That was his mistake.
Guilty people think leaving ends a conversation.
It usually starts a chase.
I followed him downstairs.
“Give me the document.”
“I don’t have anything.”
“Then empty your briefcase.”
Ron stopped.
Beside the dining table sat an old brown leather briefcase I had seen him bring inside hundreds of times.
Ron stared at it.
So did everyone else.
Sherry stepped between us.
“Erin, enough.”
“Move.”
“You’re upsetting the baby.”
Grace was asleep against Melissa’s chest.
“You are using my daughter to avoid answering a question.”
Sherry’s expression hardened.
For the first time, the sweet grandmother act disappeared.
“Caleb warned us you’d be difficult after delivery.”
The room changed.
I looked at my husband.
“What exactly did you tell them?”
“Nothing like that.”
Sherry laughed bitterly.
“You told us she gets controlling when she’s stressed.”
“Mom.”
“And that once the baby came, someone would need to make decisions.”
Every eye in the room turned toward Caleb.
He looked destroyed.
I felt strangely calm.
“Open the briefcase.”
Ron lunged for it.
Aunt Melissa reached it first.
She snapped both locks.
Inside were receipts, envelopes, hotel brochures—
and my missing deed folder.
But underneath it was something else.
A typed document.
PROPERTY MANAGEMENT AUTHORIZATION.
My name appeared at the bottom.
So did a signature.
It looked almost exactly like mine.
May you like
Almost.
Someone had forged my signature.
