Chapter 3 - THE PAPERS I ALMOST SIGNED
I called Andrew.
He did not answer.
I called again.
Straight to voicemail.
Lorraine stood in the kitchen watching me.
Her earlier confidence had disappeared.
“You’re overreacting.”
I looked at her.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“About Brooke.”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
I moved closer.
“Did you know Andrew wanted me to sign documents?”
Lorraine looked away.
That was enough.
“What did he tell you?”
“He said he was restructuring some things.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lorraine.”
She snapped.
“He said the house should have been in his name from the beginning.”
The sentence settled over the room.
Michael remained near the doorway.
Neither of us interrupted her.
Lorraine continued because angry people often reveal more than careful people.
“You used inheritance money to control him.”
“I used inheritance money to buy the house.”
“You were married.”
“And Andrew had nearly sixty thousand dollars in business debt he never told me about until three days before closing.”
Her eyes widened.
I had never told her that.
The original mortgage broker had warned us that Andrew’s debt and damaged credit could complicate the purchase.
My grandmother had died nine months earlier.
I used part of my inheritance to make a large down payment.
The mortgage and deed were placed in my name.
Andrew had signed a notarized acknowledgment confirming that my inherited funds were separate and that he had no ownership interest created by those funds.
We had intended to revisit the arrangement later.
We never did.
Now I understood why he had recently become interested in refinancing.
I opened my laptop.
My email search found something I had ignored two weeks earlier.
A message from a lending company.
Your application remains incomplete.
I had never submitted an application.
I opened it.
The property address was mine.
The estimated value was $612,000.
The requested cash-out refinance was $275,000.
My stomach tightened.
I called the lender.
After verifying my identity, the representative became very quiet.
“Mrs. Parker, there appears to be an authorization document with your electronic signature.”
“I did not authorize anything.”
There was a pause.
“Then I strongly recommend that you submit a fraud notice immediately.”
I did.
Before ending the call, I asked one question.
“Who provided the contact number on the application?”
She read it aloud.
It belonged to Andrew.
At that exact moment, my phone vibrated.
A text message from my husband appeared.
Why are you calling the bank?
May you like
I stared at the screen.
He already knew.
