Chapter 7: The Meeting We Were Not Supposed to Know About
Jordan read the message.
He read it twice, and I watched his face do the same thing it had done at the dinner table the night before — that controlled collapse, the expression of a man who has just confirmed something he had been hoping would turn out to be wrong.
He handed me the phone.
The message was from a contact listed as *D.P.
Realty* — a name that had presumably not looked suspicious when it was first saved.
*She's told him.
We need to move the timeline up.
Can you meet me at the Hilton on Front Street tonight?
7pm.
Do not call Kayla first.*
I read it twice myself.
"He's contacting you directly," I said.
"He must have gotten my number from Kayla."
"Which means she gave it to him."
Jordan said nothing.
"He wants to meet you before you speak to her again," I said.
"That tells us something."
"It tells us he thinks he can manage me."
"Yes."
Jordan took the phone back.
He looked at the message for a moment.
"I'm going to go," he said.
"Jordan—"
"I need to hear what he says." He looked at me directly.
"And I want him to know that I know.
Whatever he thinks he's coming to manage, I want to see his face when he understands it's already too late."
I thought about it.
"All right," I said.
"But you're not going alone."
At six-fifteen that evening Martin Cho called me back.
He had reviewed every document.
He had run Derek Paulson through public business records and found Paulson Capital Group LLC registered in Delaware eighteen months ago — two months before the first message in the thread — with Kayla listed as a secondary member.
He had also found two prior civil judgments against Paulson in other states, both involving disputed property transfers, both settled confidentially.
"This is not his first time," Martin said.
"No," I said.
"I didn't think it was."
"The quitclaim deed can be challenged on the basis of forgery.
Given your alibi documentation — and Ruth has already sent me the Dayton paperwork — I am very confident we can have the deed voided.
The deed of trust is more complicated because the lender is a third party, but given that the underlying deed is fraudulent, the trust should fall with it."
"How long?"
"An emergency filing can go in this week.
A hearing could be scheduled within thirty days.
With the evidence you have, I would expect a favorable outcome, though I want you to understand that Paulson will have an attorney and there will be a fight."
"I know," I said.
"Elaine.
There is one more thing you should consider."
"Tell me."
"The forged notarization is a serious matter.
A notary who falsely certifies a signature can lose their commission and face criminal exposure.
If that notary was pressured or compensated to perform a false certification, that is a separate criminal matter entirely."
"Separate from the civil challenge."
"Correct.
If you want to pursue that avenue, I would recommend contacting the Franklin County prosecutor's office after the new year."
I wrote it all down in my blue notebook.
"Thank you, Martin," I said.
"One more thing," he said.
"Don't let your son confront anyone tonight without documentation.
If he's meeting Paulson, he should record the conversation.
Ohio is a one-party consent state.
He doesn't need Paulson's permission."
I thanked Martin again and ended the call.
Then I walked to the sitting room and told Jordan everything Martin had said.
Jordan listened.
When I finished he picked up his phone, opened the voice memo application, and set it to record.
He slipped the phone into his breast pocket.
"I'll call you when I leave," he said.
"I'll be awake," I said.
He put on his coat.
At the front door he stopped and turned back.
"Mom." He looked at me the way he had not looked at me since he was a boy — open, uncertain, reaching for something solid.
"I don't know how to fix this."
"You don't have to fix it tonight," I said.
"Tonight you just have to listen."
He nodded.
Opened the door.
The December cold came in for a moment and then he was gone.
I sat in the kitchen with my blue notebook and a cup of tea and did not move for the next two hours.
At nine forty-seven he called.
"Mom."
"I'm here."
"I have the whole conversation on the recording." His voice was very flat.
"He offered me money."
"How much?"
"Forty thousand dollars.
To stop contesting the deed, to sign a release, and to not contact an attorney." A pause.
"He also said that if I cooperated, he would make sure the loan against your house was restructured so that you could continue living there."
"Living in my own home as a debtor," I said.
"Yes.
He made it sound like a solution."
"What did you say?"
"I said I needed time to think." Another pause.
"And then I asked him how long he had known Kayla."
Silence on the line.
"Jordan," I said.
"He said two years." Jordan's voice did not change.
It stayed flat and careful, the way voices get when the feelings underneath are too large for any other register.
"He said they met at a conference two years ago.
He said—" He stopped.
"What did he say?"
"He said Lily was the reason they couldn't walk away from the plan.
That the situation had become complicated.
That was the word he used.
*Complicated.*"
I closed my eyes.
"I'm coming home," Jordan said.
"I'll put the kettle on," I said.
He arrived twenty minutes later.
He sat down at the kitchen table and placed his phone between us.
He pressed play on the recording.
I listened to the entire conversation without speaking.
When it ended Jordan looked at me.
"Kayla's phone records," I said.
"Martin needs those.
And if there is any way to establish Lily's paternity—"
"I've already thought about it," Jordan said.
He reached into his coat pocket and set a small sealed plastic bag on the table.
Inside it was a child's plastic hairbrush.
Pink.
With several fine dark strands wound through the bristles.
"She keeps it in the diaper bag," he said.
"Lily's.
I took it before I left tonight."
I looked at the hairbrush in its careful little bag.
My granddaughter's hair.
Whatever the answer was, Lily was still my granddaughter.
I wanted Jordan to know that.
I would find the right moment to say it clearly.
"Martin will know a laboratory," I said.
"Yes," Jordan said.
He wrapped his hands around the mug I had set in front of him.
Outside, the December wind had picked up.
May you like
Somewhere across the city, Kayla did not yet know that her husband had spent the evening sitting across from Derek Paulson with a recording running in his breast pocket.
She would find out soon enough.
