Chapter 11
"Sit down, Connor," I said.
He sat beside his father.
I opened the folder and slid the management agreement across the coffee table toward him.
"Do you recognize this document?"
He glanced at it.
"It's the property management contract."
"Do you recognize the signature?"
He looked more carefully.
Something shifted in his expression, almost too quickly to catch.
"It looks like yours."
"It isn't mine." I kept my voice even.
"I never signed this.
I never agreed to any management arrangement.
And I never authorized anyone to collect rental income on my behalf." I looked at him directly.
"The income went into your account.
Fourteen thousand dollars."
He leaned back.
"Dad handled the admin side.
I didn't know the specifics of the paperwork."
"Connor." Madison's voice was tight.
"Stop."
He looked at her.
"Just stop," she said.
"She already knows."
A long quiet settled over the room.
Outside, a motorboat moved across the far end of the lake, its engine a low hum that faded slowly into the pines.
Connor looked back at me.
The easy smile was gone.
"We weren't trying to steal from you," he said.
"We thought the house was going to come to us eventually anyway.
We were just—"
"Using it in the meantime," I said.
"I know.
Your father explained the logic."
"It wasn't malicious."
"Forging my signature on a legal document is a crjme regardless of the intent behind it." I said it quietly, but I didn't soften it.
"Using that document to collect and retain rental income from my property is also a crjme.
Those are not judgments.
They are definitions."
Connor's jaw tightened.
"You're going to report us."
"I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do." I turned to Madison.
"What I need first is for you to understand what actually happened here."
Madison had been sitting very still.
May you like
Her eyes were red at the edges, not from crying, but from the effort of not crying.
She was looking at her hands.
