Chapter 10
By the time Dana and I reached the penthouse, the winter dark had settled against the windows, turning the city below into a scatter of lights.
Mr. Patel met us at the private elevator with a security guard. He glanced at my face, then at the fresh key card in his hand.
“We’ve got someone on your floor,” he said. “No one’s entered the unit.”
My fingers tightened around the elevator rail. “Who?”
“Charles. Patricia. And a locksmith.”
The elevator climbed.
The doors opened onto my hallway. Charles stood beside my front door, one hand braced against the wall as if he owned even the air around it. Patricia hovered behind him, pale and rigid. A locksmith in a canvas jacket had set down his tool case.
Charles’s gaze found me. “Good. You’re here. Let’s get this settled.”
The locksmith glanced from him to me. “I was told the homeowner requested a lock change.”
“I did not,” I said.
Charles gave a dismissive wave. “Brian’s your husband. He has a right to his home.”
“It’s my home,” I said.
“Don’t make this ugly, Valerie.”
I pulled up the digital copy of my deed on my phone and held it out—not to Charles, but to Mr. Patel. The screen trembled in my hand. I hated that he could see it. I hated more that the tremor didn’t change what the document said.
“Only my name is on it,” I told the guard. “No one enters. No lock gets changed.”
Mr. Patel checked the deed, then nodded to the locksmith. “You were given incorrect information. Please pack your tools and leave the floor.”
The man looked uncomfortable. “I’m not getting in the middle of a family matter.”
“It stopped being a family matter when someone hired you to change the locks on a home they don’t own,” Dana said.
He picked up his case. Charles stepped into his path.
“Wait.”
The guard moved between them. “Sir. Let him pass.”
For a moment, Charles looked as if he might argue. Then he let the locksmith go, his jaw working beneath the gray stubble.
Patricia caught my sleeve before I could turn away.
“Valerie, please. Don’t do this in the hallway.”
I looked down at her hand. She let go.
“Then don’t bring a locksmith to my door.”
Her face crumpled—not with the kind of grief that asks forgiveness, but with fear she couldn’t keep hidden.
“Charles said the baby would have a home without debt,” she whispered. “He said it was all temporary. That the business would repay everything.”
The words landed between us like another piece of the plan.
“Did you see what you were asked to sign?”
“I saw papers.”
“Did you read them?”
Patricia looked toward Charles. He gave her a warning glance, subtle enough that a stranger might have missed it.
I didn’t.
“Look at me,” I said.
She did, slowly.
“Read the trust terms aloud.”
Charles scoffed. “This is ridiculous.”
“Then it shouldn’t be difficult.”
Dana stood at my shoulder, quiet, letting the silence do its work. Mr. Patel and the guard remained nearby. The locksmith’s footsteps faded down the corridor.
Patricia’s hands twisted together. “I don’t have the papers.”
“I have a copy.”
I opened the folder Dana had brought and took out the draft. I didn’t hand it to her. I held it between us, open to the marked section.
Patricia swallowed. Her eyes moved across the page.
“Read it,” I said.
For a second I thought she would refuse. Then her voice came out thin.
“‘The trustee may manage, transfer, or encumber property held by the trust.’”
“And who is named trustee?”
Her lips pressed together.
“Patricia.”
“Brian.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Brian.”
I waited.
“That doesn’t sound like a debt-free home,” I said.
“He told me it would protect the baby.”
“Protect the baby from what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
Her eyes opened. She looked at the paper instead of me. “I thought he knew what he was doing.”
“That’s not the same as knowing what you were helping him do.”
Charles stepped closer. The guard shifted to block him.
“Enough,” Charles snapped. “She’s frightened and pregnant. This is exactly why we wanted to handle things privately.”
The phrase dragged up every closed-door request, every insistence that I was making trouble by asking what the papers meant. I looked at Patricia, not him.
“Did he tell you the baby would have a debt-free home because he believed it,” I asked, “or because it was the easiest way to make you stop asking questions?”
Patricia didn’t answer.
Charles’s expression hardened. “You’ve always been good at turning people against each other.”
“No,” I said. “I’m asking people to say what they know.”
A phone rang. Dana’s, not mine. She checked the screen and answered.
“This is Dana Mercer.”
She listened, her shoulders drawing tight. I watched her face change, the measured calm slipping—not into panic, but into something sharper.
“Are you certain it was submitted after the pause?” she asked.
A beat.
“Please send us the document as received. Don’t summarize it. Preserve the original and the transmission records.”
She ended the call but kept the phone in her hand.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The lender’s investigator reviewed a new submission from Charles.”
My skin prickled. “What did he send?”
“Material meant to show you agreed to proceed.”
Charles’s mouth lifted at one corner. “Maybe now they’ll hear the whole family.”
Dana didn’t look at him. “The investigator hasn’t accepted it as genuine consent. He’s reviewing the source and comparing it with the other records.”
“Was it a recording?” I asked.
“No. A written statement. There’s an affidavit attached.”
Patricia had gone so still she seemed to stop breathing.
The answer was there, in her face, before Dana said another word. I turned toward her, careful not to let the hope of an easy explanation soften my voice.
“Do you know what he submitted?”
Patricia’s eyes shone. “I don’t know.”
“Did you sign anything for him?”
Charles stepped forward again. This time Mr. Patel put out an arm.
“Sir, you need to leave the floor.”
Charles’s gaze stayed on Patricia. “Don’t say another word.”
Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
May you like
Dana’s phone buzzed. She read the message, and her face went pale.
“The investigator has the affidavit,” she said. “It bears Patricia’s name.”
