Chapter 4: The Man Nobody Mentioned
"Who is Dennis Hale?" I asked.
Carol sat down across from me.
She folded her hands on the desk the way she does when she is choosing her words carefully.
"That's what I'd like you to tell me," she said.
"Does the name mean anything to you?
Any connection to Robert, to Megan, to anyone in the family?"
I went through it slowly.
Robert's friends from college.
Megan's family — her brother in Charlotte, her parents who had retired to Florida.
Neighbors.
Business contacts.
Anyone who had ever been inside this house.
"No," I said.
"Nothing."
"He's a notary public," Carol said.
"Licensed in Mecklenburg County.
His address is a small office suite in Charlotte.
He has no public disciplinary record, no complaints filed, nothing visible." She paused.
"But he filed these documents on behalf of a party he identified as you.
And the notarization states he witnessed your signature in person."
"He has never met me."
"I know." She opened her laptop and turned it toward me.
"I found one more thing this morning.
Dennis Hale is listed as a registered agent for a company called Blue Shore Property Holdings LLC.
It was incorporated eighteen months ago."
I stared at the screen.
"Two months before the documents were filed."
"Yes."
"And who owns Blue Shore Property Holdings?"
Carol's expression didn't change.
"The registered member listed at incorporation is Robert Alan Whitfield."
The room was very quiet.
My son's full name on a company I had never heard of, built two months before someone forged my signature and filed paperwork against my house.
"He told me he was handling it," I said.
"He is handling it," Carol said.
"The question is which direction he's handling it in."
I stood up.
I walked to the window.
Carol's office overlooks a small courtyard with a bench and a crepe myrtle tree, and I focused on that tree while I worked out how to breathe.
"I need to know if Megan is a member of that company too," I said.
"She's not listed.
But that doesn't mean she isn't involved.
It means her name isn't on the paperwork."
I turned back around.
"What do I do now?"
"You do nothing that shows your hand," Carol said.
"You go back to that house.
You act normally.
You let me run the forensic examination on the signature.
You give me seventy-two hours."
"And Robert?"
"You said he told you not to tell Megan because she'd make it ugly." Carol looked at me steadily.
"I want you to think about what that sentence actually means.
He wasn't warning you about Megan to protect you.
He was warning you about Megan to protect himself."
I picked up my handbag from the chair.
My hands were steady.
I was surprised by that.
"Seventy-two hours," I said.
"Seventy-two hours," Carol said.
"And Margaret — check whether anything else is missing.
Documents.
Files.
Anything your husband kept.
Anything with both your names on it."
I drove back to the beach house along the coast road.
The water was bright and flat.
I kept both hands on the wheel.
When I pulled into the driveway, Robert's car was already there.
He was sitting on the front steps.
He stood up when he saw me.
"Mom." His voice was careful.
"Where did you go this morning?"
"Errands," I said.
He watched me come up the path.
His eyes went to my handbag, then back to my face.
"Did you call anyone?" he asked.
"Why would I call anyone, Robert?"
He held the door open for me.
I walked past him into the house.
In the hallway mirror, I caught his reflection just before he turned away.
He had his phone out again.
Typing fast.
I went to the kitchen, put the kettle on, and stood there while the water heated.
In Thomas's old filing cabinet in the study — the one I had never cleared out because I couldn't bear to — there was a drawer that held the original deed, the insurance papers, the mortgage discharge letter from the year we finished paying it off.
I waited until Robert went upstairs.
Then I went to the study.
The filing cabinet was unlocked.
May you like
It was always locked.
The drawer with the property documents was empty.
