Chapter 6

Corinne Adair's office had a radiator that knocked and a window that looked at the courthouse clock.

She laid everything out on her conference table in a row: the ledger, the notice of default, the practice page, the listing agreement, the draft contract.

"Facts," she said. "Your deed is in your name alone. That house was yours before the marriage and it stays yours. A forgery affidavit voids this line of credit - but only if we can prove the signature isn't yours, and that practice page is going to be very useful. As for the sale, Grant cannot convey property he doesn't own. He can sign a contract that says he can. That's fraud on the buyer. But if nobody stops it, somebody at a title company eventually makes a mistake, and mistakes are expensive."

I asked the question I'd been carrying for a week. "What do I owe the buyer?"

"Nothing." She tapped the contract. "Except the truth, which he apparently doesn't have."

I took everything home. That night, while Wren slept in the travel crib, I went through the folder one more time and found something I'd missed - a printout folded in with the listing agreement. An email from Grant's work address to his father's.

Nora's idea. She wants it kept in the family. She'll be glad it's you.

I read it four times.

If Gerald had been told that, then Gerald believed he was doing something kind. And if Gerald believed he was doing something kind, he had not been standing in a church basement plotting with Audrey to take my house.

Or he had been, and this was simply the story they'd agreed to tell.

I sat at the kitchen table with my mother's dish towel in my hand and could not make the two things fit. So I stopped trying to make them fit and made a plan instead.

I could not stop the closing by myself. Corinne could file, and it would take weeks I didn't have. The one person who could kill that contract before Monday was the man whose name was on it.

So I called Audrey and told her I'd come by Saturday morning to return her serving dish.

"Bring Wren," she said, too quickly. "Bring Wren."

Saturday was cold and bright. I put the folder in the diaper bag, under the spare onesie and the wipes, and drove to the house on Ridge Road where my husband grew up.