Chapter 8: The Morning I Checked
I didn't take the folder with me. I took pictures of it.
That was the rule I'd made the night before at my kitchen table. The navy folder with the red tab stayed zipped inside my old tote bag in my closet, under a stack of sweaters. What I carried out to my car at seven thirty that morning was my phone and a single folded printout I'd made at the library on my lunch break, just the one page that mattered, the colors muted from their copier.
My name is still the same as it was in that doorway, but that morning I felt like someone checking her own name against a list to see if it was still there.
The county records office opened at eight. I got there at seven-fifty and sat in the parking lot with the heat running. The building was low brick, next to the courthouse, with a flag out front and a sign that said Clerk & Recorder. I watched a woman unlock the front door and flip the sign from Closed to Open.
I hadn't called ahead. I'd texted Marla the day before. She used to work admin at the office where he worked, before she retired last spring. She'd replied, diner at 8:30? records opens early if you want to look yourself first. I'd written back, records first. then diner if I need help reading it.
Inside, the air smelled like old paper and floor cleaner. A young guy at the front desk slid a clipboard toward me without looking up.
"Requesting to view or requesting a copy?" he asked.
"To view," I said. My voice sounded thin. "I have a parcel number. I just want to compare what's on file."
He gave me a half-sheet form. Name, address, parcel or document number, reason for request. I filled it in with my own parcel number, not his, then corrected it. My hand shook a little on the last digit. I left the reason blank until he tapped it with his pen.
"Just put 'personal review,'" he said.
I wrote personal review. He stamped it with a red received stamp and handed me a yellow copy. The stamp bled a little. 08:04 AM. I folded it and put it in my pocket.
He led me to a table with a public terminal, the kind with a thick monitor and a chained-down mouse. "System's slow this morning," he said. "Type it in there. If you need a certified print, it's five dollars a page at the counter."
I sat down and typed the number from my printout. The screen blinked, then loaded a scanned deed with a blue header. I leaned in. The names, the dates, the legal description—everything looked normal until I scrolled to the second page. The signature block was there, his signature, notarized, dated three weeks before he'd told me we'd missed the deadline.
I pulled my folded library copy from my jacket pocket and smoothed it on the table beside the keyboard. On my copy—the photo of the folder's contents—the same document had an addendum stapled behind it, a single sheet with the red tab marking it, signed and initialed by him, acknowledging receipt of funds and an agreement to hold them in escrow pending my signature. That sheet wasn't in the county system at all.
I stared at both for a long time, breathing shallow.
"You find it?" the guy asked from the desk.
"Can I ask someone to double-check I'm reading this right?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Marla still comes in Tuesdays if you know her. She volunteers."
Marla was already waiting in a booth at the diner across the street when I walked in at 8:32. She had coffee and two menus out. She was in her sixties, short gray hair, glasses on a chain. She'd always been kind to me at office picnics.
"You didn't bring the whole thing, did you?" she asked when I slid in.
I shook my head and unfolded the copy. I kept the phone in my pocket. "I didn't want to risk it. This is just a photo copy. Does the county have to have everything that's signed?"
She put her glasses on and looked, her finger tracing the lines without touching the paper. She didn't ask whose signature it was.
"This second page," she said quietly. "This escrow addendum. This should be recorded if money changed hands. Or at least referenced."
"It's not on the terminal over there," I said. "I checked. It's just the deed."
She looked up at me over her glasses. "That means it wasn't filed."
"Is that normal? To not file it?"
She folded the paper back along its crease and pushed it toward me. "No, honey. Not if you're doing it right." She kept her voice low. A waitress passed with a pot of coffee. "If this is what I think it is, the county record shows one story and that paper in your tote bag shows another. That's a discrepancy."
My chest tightened. I slipped the copy back into my jacket and zipped it.
"What do I do without making it official yet?" I asked. It came out as one short sentence. "I can't file anything today."
"You don't have to," she said. "You request. You keep your stamped copy." She tapped my pocket where I'd put the yellow form. "That slip proves you asked and what day you asked. If anyone asks why you were there, you were checking your own records. Keep your photos hidden until you decide."
May you like
The waitress came back. Marla ordered toast she didn't eat. I kept my hands around my mug to stop them from shaking. Outside the window, I could see the brick records building and my car in the lot, and I thought about the empty spot on the console table back at the office where the folder had been, and how he'd have to see it every time he walked past.
I left two dollars for coffee and walked back to my car with the stamped request form safe in my pocket and the library copy zipped out of sight.
