Chapter 6: What Gareth Solis Needed Me to Know
I didn't speak for a moment.
"How did you get this number?" I said.
"Your father gave it to me.
He wanted me available in case you called." A pause.
"He didn't expect me to call you first."
"Why are you calling me first?"
Another pause, longer.
"Because he told me you had agreed to the transfer.
He said it was a family arrangement — that you were putting the house in his name for estate planning reasons, that you'd signed the original and just needed a notarized copy made for the county filing." His voice was tight.
"He said you were traveling and had pre-signed the document before you left."
"I was in Chicago on the fourteenth.
I have hotel records, flight records, and a client meeting with six witnesses."
Silence.
"Mr.
Solis," I said.
"Did you watch me sign that document?"
The silence this time was different.
Heavier.
"No," he said.
"Your father presented it as already signed.
He said you'd done it before your trip.
I notarized the signature as presented."
"That is still fraud.
You notarized a signature you did not witness."
"I know." His voice had gone very quiet.
"I know that.
I'm not calling to excuse it.
I'm calling because your father told me this was a clean family arrangement and I believed him, and now I'm reading about what a lis pendens means and what document fraud carries and I—" He stopped.
"I have a family.
I have a license, what's left of it.
I don't want to be the person who goes down for something I didn't fully understand I was doing."
"Then you need to talk to an attorney.
Tonight."
"I already called one.
She told me to contact you directly and be honest about what happened."
"Good advice." I kept my voice even.
"I'm going to give you my attorney's contact information.
You will need to provide a sworn statement about what my father told you, what document was presented, and the exact circumstances of the notarization.
If your account is consistent and honest, that helps establish the fraud originated with him, not with you."
"And if I do that — what happens to me?"
"That's between you and your attorney and potentially the DA's office.
I can't promise you anything.
But a person who comes forward honestly is treated differently than a person who doesn't." I paused.
"You have until tomorrow morning.
After that, we file regardless, and you become a named party in a civil fraud action."
He said he understood.
I sent him Daniel's number and hung up.
I sat very still for a moment.
Then I called Daniel.
"The notary just contacted me," I said.
"He says my father told him I had pre-signed the document and was traveling.
He notarized a signature he didn't witness because he believed the transfer was legitimate."
"He's trying to reduce his exposure."
"Yes.
But his account is consistent with forgery on my father's part.
If he gives a sworn statement, it corroborates everything."
"It does." Daniel's voice was careful.
"Claire, this changes the criminal picture.
If the notary testifies that your father presented a pre-signed document and misrepresented the circumstances, that's direct evidence of intent to defraud.
This isn't a civil matter anymore.
This is a felony."
I looked at the window.
The light outside had gone orange and low.
"File the police report," I said.
"Tonight?"
"Tomorrow morning.
With the lis pendens.
Both at the same time."
A pause.
"Are you sure?"
I thought about the dining room table.
The deed folder.
My father's smile — not warm, almost pitying.
*You might want to check that again.*
"He planned this for at least eleven days," I said.
"He used a lapsed notary, forged my signature, filed against my title, and sat at my kitchen table the next morning drinking coffee.
Yes.
I'm sure."
"I'll have everything ready to file at nine."
After I hung up, I poured a glass of water and stood at the kitchen window.
The house was quiet in the way it used to be before any of them arrived — a quietness that had its own weight, its own texture.
My phone buzzed.
Elena.
I looked at it for a moment.
Then I answered.
"I need to tell you something," she said.
Her voice was different from this morning.
Stripped of the careful neutrality she'd been maintaining.
"About the wedding money."
"Okay."
"The $87,000 wasn't for the wedding." She exhaled.
"Or not entirely.
Dad's been in debt since the business collapsed.
Not the kind of debt he told you about.
The kind he didn't tell anyone about.
He owes money to people he borrowed from privately, not from a bank.
The wedding was real — Marcus and I are getting married — but the number kept growing because Dad kept adding to it.
He was using the wedding as the reason to get money from you."
I set the glass down.
"How long have you known this?"
"I found out three weeks ago.
When I saw the actual vendor invoices and they didn't match what Dad was telling you." She paused.
"I confronted him.
He told me it was handled.
He told me he had a plan."
"The quitclaim."
"Yes." Her voice broke slightly.
"Claire, I'm sorry.
I should have told you the moment I found out.
I kept thinking he would fix it himself, that he wouldn't actually go through with it.
I kept making excuses because he's our father and I didn't want to believe he would do this to you."
I didn't say anything for a moment.
"Elena.
I need you to write down everything you just told me.
Dates, conversations, what you saw on the invoices.
Everything.
Send it to me tonight."
"Are you going to use it against him?"
"I'm going to use it to protect myself.
Whether that affects him depends on what he does next."
She was quiet.
Then: "Okay.
I'll write it down."
"Thank you."
I hung up and stood in the kitchen for a long time.
My father hadn't just tried to take my house.
May you like
He had been planning a way out of his own ruin for months, and he had built the entire plan on the assumption that I would either not notice or not fight back.
He had been wrong about both.
