Chương 9
“Do you think they were trying to borrow against the condo?”
“I don’t know.”
“What else would appraisal mean?”
“It isn’t an appraisal.”
“Whitney.”
“I need evidence.”
“You found an email saying you wouldn’t agree if they asked.”
“That proves they discussed something involving the value.”
“Fine.”
Her impatience sharpened.
“Then what are you going to do?”
I looked around the office.
The missing mortgage statement.
The tax return pages shifted out of order.
The investment statements gone.
Chase had access to all of it.
“I’m going to check every credit inquiry and every lender contact I can identify.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“I knew you were going to say that.”
For the next two hours, I searched carefully.
There was no funded loan.
No recorded lien.
No completed mortgage application.
But I found one soft credit inquiry from a private lending platform six months earlier.
Soft inquiries were not proof of an application.
Some occurred through marketing or account review.
This company specialized in short-term real-estate-backed lending.
I had never dealt with them.
I called the number on the report.
The representative refused to discuss any account without additional verification.
Good.
That was exactly how she should have responded.
I gave her my information and said I was concerned about possible identity misuse.
Her tone changed.
She transferred me to fraud prevention.
After verifying me through a series of questions, the fraud specialist confirmed that an inquiry had been initiated using my identifying information.
My mouth went dry.
“Was an account opened?”
“No funded account appears under your profile.”
“Was an application submitted?”
“I’m limited in what I can disclose until we complete our investigation.”
“Can you tell me whether the application involved property?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
I gripped the phone.
“My condo?”
“I can’t confirm property details at this stage.”
I closed my eyes.
“Can you preserve every document and access record associated with the inquiry?”
“Yes.”
“I may need them through counsel.”
“We can provide instructions for legal requests.”
I thanked her.
Before ending the call, the specialist said something I had not asked.
“Ms. Hayes, I strongly recommend you place a fraud alert in addition to the freezes you’ve already done.”
“How do you know I froze my credit?”
“You told me earlier.”
I had.
My brain was slipping.
“Right.”
I wrote it down anyway.
After the call, I sat completely still.
The condo hummed around me.
Refrigerator.
Ventilation.
A siren somewhere below.
Ordinary machinery continuing to function.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was an email from Chase.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw the subject.
YOU NEED TO STOP DIGGING.
I opened it.
There was no greeting.
You are taking private family financial matters out of context and exposing people who have done nothing except try to build a future with you.
If you keep contacting banks and vendors, you will create consequences you cannot undo.
We can settle this privately.
Do not force me to protect myself.
I read the last sentence three times.
Then I forwarded it to Rachel.
My phone rang before I could put it down.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman said, “Is this Whitney Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Lauren Mercer.”
I stood.
Mercer.
Chase had never mentioned a Lauren.
“I think you’re engaged to my brother.”
The room seemed to tilt half an inch.
“Yes.”
She breathed out.
“I’ve been trying to decide whether to call you for months.”
“Why?”
There was a long silence.
Then she said, “Because our mother did this before.”
I sat back down.
“Did what?”
Lauren’s voice became very quiet.
“Used Chase to get close to a woman with money.”
I did not answer immediately.
A year earlier, I would have.
I would have filled the silence because silence usually meant someone was waiting for me to make them comfortable.
That habit had cost me more than I wanted to admit.
So I sat there with the phone against my ear and let Lauren decide whether she wanted to continue.
Finally, she said, “My mother would call it networking.”
“Your mother.”
“Diane.”
I looked toward the office door.
The folder was still on my desk.
The documents were still scattered across the floor.
The entire apartment suddenly felt like a place where strangers had been moving around while I was asleep.
“What exactly did she do?”
Lauren exhaled.
“I need to know what you already know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” she said quietly.
“It’s me trying to avoid making this worse.”
I almost ended the call.
Not because I did not believe her.
Because I was tired of people deciding how much truth I could handle.
“I have fake wedding invoices,” I said.
“Money transferred through a company my future mother-in-law owns.”
I paused.
“Chase raised his fist at me last night, then filed a report claiming I attacked him.”
The silence on the other end lasted so long I checked whether the call had dropped.
“He did that?”
“Yes.”
A sharp breath.
“Okay.”
Her voice changed.
“I’m sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
“People keep saying that.”
“I know.”
She swallowed.
“I don’t mean it like everyone else does.”
“How else is there to mean it?”
“Like they’re sorry you’re hurt.”
A pause.
“Like I’m sorry I knew something was wrong and didn’t tell you.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
“What did you know?”
“Not enough.”
“That is becoming a very popular answer.”
“I know.”
There was no defensiveness in her voice.
That made it harder.
Lauren told me she was thirty-eight and lived outside Milwaukee.
She and Chase had the same father but different mothers, and after their father died when Chase was twenty-three, Diane became the center of his life in a way Lauren never fully understood.
“She made him feel like they were a team,” Lauren said.
“And maybe at first that was comforting.”
“But?”
“But teams have rules.”
Her voice lowered.
“Diane doesn’t have rules.”
“She has loyalty.”
May you like
I sat back down.
“What happened before?”
