Chapter 4
By eight the next morning, I was sitting in my sister’s kitchen with a lawyer on speakerphone.
I had barely slept.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw dirty water falling over me.
Then Linda’s fake tears.
Then my forged signature.
Rachel pushed a plate of toast toward me.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re eight months pregnant.”
“I know how pregnant I am.”
“Then eat.”
I took a bite because arguing with Rachel was pointless.
Sophie sat in the living room watching cartoons with her cousin.
For once, I was grateful for the noise.
The attorney’s name was Melissa Grant.
Ryan had found her through a business client.
She specialized in real estate disputes and fraud.
Her first words were not comforting.
“Do not sign anything.”
“I won’t.”
“Do not negotiate directly with your mother-in-law.”
“I definitely won’t.”
“And do not assume an attempted forged deed is harmless simply because you caught it quickly.”
I looked at Ryan’s face on the video call.
He hadn’t slept either.
Linda and Gerald had finally left the house around two in the morning after the police returned.
Linda had gone to a hotel.
At least that was what she claimed.
Ryan changed the locks the moment she left.
Now he was sitting alone at our kitchen table.
The same table where his mother had spent months criticizing my cooking.
Melissa continued.
“The county fraud investigator contacted you because something triggered a review. That is good.”
“What triggers it?” I asked.
“Potentially a signature discrepancy. Improper notarization. A filing error. There are several possibilities.”
“Can Linda take our house?”
“Not legally through a forged instrument.”
“That isn’t exactly reassuring.”
“It shouldn’t be. Forgery is serious.”
Ryan rubbed his forehead.
“I gave my mother money sometimes.”
Melissa paused.
“How much?”
“Small things.”
“Define small.”
“A few hundred. Sometimes a thousand.”
I stared at him.
“A thousand?”
His eyes closed.
I had not known that.
Melissa asked, “How often?”
Ryan looked uncomfortable.
“Every couple months.”
“For how long?”
“Years.”
I put my toast down.
“Ryan.”
“My mom struggled after Dad left.”
“That was twenty-five years ago.”
“I know.”
“How much money have you given her?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you not know?”
“It wasn’t all at once.”
Rachel glanced at me, then wisely left the kitchen.
Melissa interrupted before the conversation exploded.
“We need financial records.”
Ryan nodded.
“I’ll get them.”
“Every account your mother may know about.”
“She doesn’t have access.”
“Are you sure?”
He hesitated.
My stomach sank.
“Ryan.”
“She was on my first checking account.”
“When you were how old?”
“Seventeen.”
“And?”
“I kept the account when I started working.”
My pulse sped up.
“Is she still on it?”
“I don’t use it much.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
His mother had access to an account in his name.
And he had never told me.
Melissa spoke firmly.
“Close or freeze that account immediately.”
Ryan reached for another phone.
“I will.”
“Also pull both of your credit reports.”
I asked, “Why mine?”
“Because she had access to your Social Security number.”
“How?”
Ryan and I looked at each other.
The fireproof box.
Tax returns.
Mortgage documents.
Everything.
Melissa continued.
“If someone is willing to forge a deed, you do not assume that is the only line they crossed.”
I suddenly felt sick.
Ryan said, “Emily?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look pale.”
“I said I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t.
Every hour revealed another thing my husband had hidden or minimized.
Another door Linda had quietly opened into our lives.
Another piece of control she had built while I tried to be polite.
My phone rang.
The detective.
This time I answered.
“Mrs. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Aaron Mason. I’m with the county economic crimes unit.”
“Thank you for calling.”
“I’d like to confirm whether you signed a property transfer document dated August eighteenth.”
“No.”
“Were you present before a notary named Patricia Lane?”
“No.”
“Do you know Patricia Lane?”
“No.”
Ryan suddenly looked up.
“I do.”
I stared at him.
Detective Mason heard him.
“Who is speaking?”
“My husband, Ryan Carter.”
“How do you know that name, sir?”
Ryan looked shaken.
“Patricia is a friend of my mother’s.”
I gripped the table.
“What kind of friend?”
“They worked together years ago.”
The detective went quiet.
Then he said, “I’ll need both of you to give formal statements.”
“Did Patricia notarize the document?” I asked.
“I can’t discuss all details of an active investigation.”
That meant yes.
I knew it.
After the call, I stared at Ryan.
“You knew your mother had a notary friend.”
“I didn’t connect it.”
“You don’t connect anything when it comes to her.”
“That’s not fair.”
I laughed.
Rachel looked into the kitchen.
I held up a hand.
“I’m okay.”
Then I turned back to the screen.
“Not fair?”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“I’m trying to fix this.”
“You are trying to fix something I begged you for months to see.”
“I know.”
“No. You keep saying that like it erases the consequences.”
“It doesn’t.”
“She locked our daughter in her bedroom.”
His face crumpled.
“She poured dirty water over me.”
“I know.”
“She forged my signature.”
“I know.”
“And somehow I’m still finding out that you’ve been secretly giving her money and she has access to one of your bank accounts.”
“I wasn’t hiding it.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“That’s different.”
“No, Ryan. It isn’t.”
His voice rose.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth!”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“The whole truth.”
He stopped.
That stop told me everything.
“What else?”
“Emily.”
“What else?”
He looked away.
My skin prickled.
“Ryan.”
He spoke quietly.
“She asked me for ten thousand dollars six months ago.”
I felt as though someone had hit me.
“For what?”
“She said she had medical debt.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“Yes.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped back.
A pain stabbed through my belly.
Rachel rushed in.
“Sit down.”
I ignored her.
“From where?”
Ryan swallowed.
“Our savings.”
“Our savings?”
“I replaced most of it.”
“That was the baby fund.”
“I know.”
“The money we set aside so I could take unpaid maternity leave?”
“I put it back.”
“How much?”
“Eight thousand.”
“So two thousand is still missing.”
“I was going to replace it before the baby came.”
“When were you planning to tell me?”
He said nothing.
That hurt more than an answer.
Melissa finally spoke.
“I’m going to suggest we separate the legal issue from the marital issue for the next hour.”
Rachel muttered, “Good luck.”
I sat down.
My hands were trembling.
The lawyer asked Ryan to pull transaction records from the old account.
He logged in.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He stared at the screen.
“What?” I repeated.
“There are transactions.”
“What kind?”
“Transfers.”
“To whom?”
He scrolled.
“I don’t recognize the account.”
“How much?”
He went quiet.
“Ryan.”
“Thirty-eight thousand.”
My ears rang.
Melissa’s voice sharpened.
“Over what period?”
“Eleven months.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Thirty-eight thousand dollars?”
Ryan looked horrified.
“I didn’t do this.”
“Was that money yours?”
“Some.”
“What does ‘some’ mean?”
“The account receives occasional distributions from my grandfather’s trust.”
That was another fact I knew.
His grandfather had left money to the grandchildren.
Ryan rarely touched it.
The distributions were small enough that we treated them as emergency reserves.
At least I thought they were small.
Melissa asked, “Could your mother initiate transfers?”
“If she’s still a joint owner, yes.”
“Then you need complete statements.”
Ryan downloaded them.
The pattern became clear quickly.
Transfers.
Two thousand.
Three thousand.
Five hundred.
Four thousand.
All sent to an account ending in the same four digits.
Ryan called the bank.
After identity verification, they told him the destination account was another account held jointly.
Ryan and Linda.
Ryan’s face went blank.
“I didn’t open another account with her.”
The banker said it had been opened four years earlier.
Online.
Using Ryan’s information.
Melissa stopped him from discussing more over speakerphone.
“Get the documents.”
By noon, we had a bigger problem than the house.
Linda had apparently been moving money from an old joint account into a second account Ryan claimed he never authorized.
Maybe she had used his login.
Maybe she had opened it with old information.
Maybe he had signed something years ago and forgotten.
The investigation would determine that.
What mattered to me was that Linda had been taking money.
A lot of it.
And Ryan had never noticed.
My phone buzzed.
A family group chat.
Linda had added me back after removing me months earlier.
Her message filled the screen.
Since Emily is determined to destroy this family, everyone deserves to know the truth. She has been emotionally abusing Ryan for years and is now trying to steal the home I helped purchase.
Then came a photograph.
Me.
At the hospital.
Sitting in bed.
I stared at it.
“How did she get that?”
Rachel leaned over my shoulder.
“Was that taken last night?”
“Yes.”
Ryan looked through the video call.
“What photo?”
I sent it.
His face changed.
“That’s from outside the room.”
I zoomed in.
The angle showed the side of my bed.
The half-open hospital door.
Someone had stood in the hallway.
Watching me.
My skin crawled.
“Linda was at the hospital.”
Ryan stood.
“She told me she went to a hotel.”
“She lied.”
Another message appeared in the family chat.
She is using the pregnancy to manipulate everyone. Doctors confirmed nothing is wrong with her.
That was false.
Then another.
Ryan is afraid to speak because she controls him.
Rachel whispered, “She’s trying to build a story.”
Melissa heard her.
“Yes.”
I looked at the lawyer.
“For what?”
“Possibly family sympathy. Possibly leverage.”
“Leverage for what?”
Before she could answer, someone knocked on Rachel’s front door.
Three firm knocks.
Rachel frowned.
“I’m not expecting anyone.”
My body went tense.
She looked through the peephole.
Then turned to me.
Her face had changed.
“Emily.”
“What?”
“There are two people outside.”
“Who?”
“One says she’s from Child Protective Services.”
The room went silent.
I stared at the door.
Then at the family group chat.
May you like
Linda had not finished.
She had only changed weapons.
