Chapter 2 - The Ghost Notary
The silence on the other end of the line stretched so long I could hear the faint hum of office fluorescent lights somewhere in Chicago.
"Say that again," Julian said, his voice dropping into a low, clinical register that meant he had shifted straight into investigator mode.
"The notary public listed on the quitclaim deed—Evelyn Vance," I repeated, keeping my eyes fixed on my mother down below as she aggressively pruned my prize-winning rose bushes. "Her stamp, her license number, her electronic signature. They're all on the document Alder used to seize the title this morning. But her office downtown closed down last November after she passed away from a stroke."
"A dead notary's seal being used on an active electronic filing is a federal felony, Nora, not just a civil property dispute," Julian said, his chair creaking as he presumably stood up to grab his laptop. "If they used a deceased notary's credentials to push a fraudulent title transfer through the county clerk's online portal, whoever submitted it had to bypass the state’s automated verification firewall. That takes internal credentials, or someone with active access to the county recorder's backend system."
"Can you trace who uploaded it?"
"Give me an hour," Julian said. "Send me a digital snapshot of the deed Alder gave the cops. Don't touch anything else. Are you still inside the house?"
"I'm in the master bedroom," I said, glancing at the floral comforter. "They're moving their furniture into the guest wing downstairs. They act like they own the place because, legally, the county database currently says they do."
"Don't confront them. Don't let them know you know about Evelyn Vance," Julian warned. "If they realize the notary angle is dead, they'll shred whatever physical copies they have left and try to lock down the bank accounts next. I'm catching the next flight out of O'Hare. I'll be at your gates by tonight."
The line clicked dead. I lowered my phone and sat back against the headboard, my mind racing. If the notary was dead, that meant Alder hadn't just pulled a quick family prank or forged a signature on a kitchen table. This was premeditated, institutional fraud requiring inside help—someone inside the county records office or within the title company itself.
And then it hit me.
Vanessa, my real estate agent. She hadn't just handed my keys to my mother by accident yesterday. She had been nervous when we signed the initial purchase agreement. I had chalked it up to her being a junior agent closing on a high-value property, but she had kept checking her phone every two minutes, looking over her shoulder as if she were waiting for a green light from someone in the parking lot.
I stood up, walked out of the bedroom, and padded softly down the carpeted hallway toward the stairs. As I reached the landing, I heard my father's booming laugh echoing from the kitchen, followed by my mother's voice.
"We just need to make sure she stays down in the basement apartment until the second mortgage clears next week," my mother was saying, her tone chillingly practical. "Once the equity line is approved in Alder's name, we can refinance the old house and pay off the bridge loan. She won't even be able to sue us because her name won't be anywhere near the primary lien."
I gripped the wooden banister so hard my knuckles turned white. A bridge loan. They hadn't just stolen my house to live in it; they were using my immaculate credit score and my clean cash purchase as collateral to bail out my father's failing commercial landscaping business, which had been bleeding money for three years.
I turned quietly around, intending to head back to the master suite to download my bank records, when a sharp rap sounded at the front door downstairs.
It wasn't a knock from a police officer or a delivery driver. It was a rhythmic, three-part double tap—the exact signal my uncle used whenever he showed up uninvited to demand money.
"I'll get it!" Alder called out from the living room.
I froze on the top step, crouching slightly so I could see over the wrought-iron railing down into the foyer.
The heavy front door swung open. It wasn't my uncle standing on the porch.
It was Vanessa, the real estate agent. But she didn't look like a triumphant co-conspirator. Her mascara was smeared, her designer blazer was wrinkled, and her hands were shaking as she clutched a manila folder against her chest.
"You idiots," Vanessa hissed, pushing past Alder without waiting for an invitation. She slammed the door shut behind her, her eyes wide with panic. "The title company just flagged the transfer. The automated audit caught the electronic signature stamp. It matched a deceased notary from the sixth district."
Alder’s smug expression vanished instantly. The champagne glass in his hand stopped halfway to his mouth. "What are you talking about? You said the system cleared it this morning!"
"I said the local batch file cleared because your uncle's contact in the records office pushed it through manually before the morning sweep," Vanessa whispered harshly, her voice trembling. "HQ in downtown ran a secondary compliance check ten minutes ago. They flagged the file ID. Federal investigators are already reviewing the metadata. If they trace that IP address back to my broker's office terminal, I'm going to prison for wire fraud!"
Up on the landing, my heart hammered against my ribs. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, hit record on the voice memo app, and held it over the railing.
"Calm down, Vanessa," my father said, walking into the foyer with a glass of scotch in his hand, looking entirely too relaxed for a man whose accomplice was having a panic attack. "Nobody is going to prison. We have a signed agreement. We just need Nora to sign a retroactive ratification form tomorrow morning, acknowledging that she transferred the title voluntarily as an intra-family gift."
"She won't sign it!" Vanessa yelled, her voice cracking. "She called the cops once already! She knows something is wrong! If you don't fix this right now, I'm walking into the precinct and telling them everything about how your brother paid me forty grand in untraceable cash to hand over the spare keys!"
"You took the money, Vanessa," Alder said, his voice dropping into a cold, menacing register that I had rarely heard from him. He stepped closer to her, backing her against the oak coat rack. "That makes you an equal partner in this little transaction. If you go to the cops, you go down for bank fraud right alongside us. So take a breath, fix your makeup, and help us figure out how to make Nora sign that paper before Julian gets involved."
My blood ran cold.
Julian?
How did Vanessa know Julian's name? I hadn't mentioned Julian to anyone since entering the house. I had only just called him five minutes ago while sitting alone in the master bedroom.
Vanessa swallowed hard, looking up at Alder with pure terror in her eyes. "Julian isn't just her cousin, Alder. He's a private corporate investigator. He left Chicago three weeks ago after being hired by a federal grand jury to audit title fraud rings in the tri-state area. If he’s coming here, he already knows about the dead notary."
From the top of the stairs, I stopped breathing.
May you like
Alder slowly turned his head away from Vanessa, his eyes scanning the empty hallway, before his gaze slowly drifted upward—straight toward the landing where I was crouching in the shadows.
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