PART 4
I didn’t sleep for a single minute after the gray SUV and the black sedan disappeared.
Liam sat beside me on the mattress, fully dressed, his backpack already packed as if he expected us to run before sunrise.
The apartment felt impossibly small. Every creak in the old building sounded like footsteps on our stairs.
At 6:43 a.m., my phone rang again.
This time it wasn’t an unknown number.
It was Margaret Ellis.
I frowned.
The name meant nothing to me.
I answered cautiously.
“Hello?”
A woman with an older, steady voice spoke.
“You don’t know me, Sarah, but I’m the notary whose stamp appears on your deed.”
My heart stopped.
I stood so quickly that Liam looked up.
“What did you say?”
“I notarized paperwork eight months ago… and I need to tell you something before someone else gets to me.”
The confession
Forty minutes later, Liam and I were sitting in a quiet corner booth of a diner on the outskirts of Wilmington.
Margaret arrived wearing a beige raincoat despite the sunny weather.
She looked to be in her late sixties, with silver hair tied neatly behind her head.
Before sitting down, she glanced through the windows twice.
Then she slid a sealed envelope across the table.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I didn’t touch it.
“Did you forge my signature?”
“No.”
“Then what did you do?”
She took off her glasses.
“I notarized a woman pretending to be you.”
Everything inside me went cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“It should have been.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with regret.
“She had your driver’s license.”
I blinked.
“My license?”
“A perfect one.”
She opened the envelope herself.
Inside were copies of the notarization log.
A fingerprint.
A photograph.
And a blurry image from the office security camera.
The woman wore oversized sunglasses and a blonde wig.
But even through the poor quality, I knew one thing immediately.
It wasn’t me.
“She never removed the glasses,” Margaret continued.
“I questioned it. The man with her said you’d recently had eye surgery.”
“What man?”
Margaret hesitated.
“I later learned his name.”
She swallowed.
“Victor Lawson.”
Liam’s grip tightened around his coffee mug.
“The investor,” he murmured.
Margaret nodded.
“I realized something was wrong two weeks later when I saw your photo in a charity magazine. Different smile. Different eyes. I reported it to my supervisor.”
“What happened?”
“They told me the paperwork had already been recorded and to leave it alone.”
I stared at her.
“You reported identity fraud, and they buried it?”
She nodded once.
Then she whispered,
“Someone powerful wanted that deed processed.”
The missing license
On the drive back, memories crashed into me.
Eight months earlier.
Chicago.
I had attended a fundraising gala for the children’s hospital.
My purse had disappeared for almost thirty minutes.
Security eventually found it in the ladies’ lounge.
Nothing seemed missing.
Except…
My driver’s license had been replaced.
I remembered thinking the photo looked slightly brighter, but I blamed myself for being tired.
“Oh my God.”
Liam looked over.
“What?”
“They didn’t steal my identity afterward.”
I felt sick.
“They started stealing it that night.”
Someone inside the county
Back at the apartment, we spread every document across the table again.
Margaret had circled one name repeatedly.
Deputy Recorder: Thomas Greer
Liam immediately searched him online.
His face appeared beside dozens of community photos.
Ribbon cuttings.
Real estate conferences.
Charity golf tournaments.
And one picture made my stomach twist.
Thomas Greer stood smiling beside David.
The caption read:
Coastal Housing Development Fundraiser – April
“Dad knows him,” Liam whispered.
“No,” I said quietly.
“He planned this with him.”
The break-in
At exactly 3:12 that afternoon, someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
Nobody spoke.
Liam looked through the peephole.
“No one’s there.”
The hallway was empty.
I opened the door anyway.
A small cardboard box sat on the floor.
No address.
No postage.
Just Liam’s name written in black marker.
“Don’t touch it,” he said.
I pulled a kitchen towel around my hand before lifting it.
Inside lay only one item.
A photograph.
It showed Liam sleeping inside this very apartment.
Taken through the bedroom window.
My blood froze.
On the back, someone had written:
Stop asking questions.
Liam stumbled backward until he hit the wall.
“They know where I live.”
I immediately called 911.
This time, I refused to mention property disputes.
I reported stalking, harassment, and photographic surveillance.
Two officers arrived within fifteen minutes.
Unlike the first report Liam had filed weeks earlier, these officers took photographs, collected fingerprints from the box, and requested nearby security footage.
As they left, one officer quietly handed me his card.
“If this connects to your property case,” he said softly, “don’t discuss it over the phone.”
His tone told me he already suspected something bigger.
Richard’s mistake
That evening, my former father-in-law called.
I answered on speaker.
“Sarah,” Richard sighed, “this has gone far enough.”
“You’re living in my house.”
“It isn’t your house.”
“It will be again.”
He laughed.
“You always were stubborn, just like Eleanor.”
I went silent.
He continued talking.
And then he made the mistake.
“She never should’ve left you all that money.”
Liam’s eyes met mine instantly.
We had never told anyone—not even David—exactly how much my mother had left me.
Only the executor knew.
Richard realized it too late.
He stopped speaking.
Then hung up.
I whispered,
“He knew about the inheritance before probate closed.”
Liam answered,
“Which means Grandpa was involved from the beginning.”
The storage unit
Margaret called again just before sunset.
“There’s one more thing,” she said.
“Victor rented a storage unit the same week your deed was filed. I copied the address years ago because something felt wrong.”
She gave it to me.
Unit 214.
Coastal Secure Storage.
We drove there immediately.
The facility manager refused to open it without police.
But luck intervened.
As we turned to leave, an elderly employee stopped us.
“You looking for Victor?”
“Yes.”
“He hasn’t paid rent in months.”
The man checked his computer.
“They auction abandoned units after ninety days.”
My heart raced.
“Has this one been auctioned?”
He smiled.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Liam and I looked at each other.
If Victor had hidden anything inside Unit 214…
We had less than twenty-four hours before it disappeared forever.
Outside the storage facility, across the highway, a familiar gray SUV idled beneath a billboard.
This time, the driver didn’t hide.
He lifted a phone.
Pointed it directly at us.
And took our picture.
