Chapter 5 - The Forged Deed and The Setup
Daniel watched me carefully. “We have a strong case for financial misconduct in the divorce.” Then his expression hardened. “But there’s more.” He slid another document toward me. It was a quitclaim deed. Notarized. Dated eighteen months earlier. It attempted to transfer ten percent ownership of my house to Caroline. At the bottom was my signature. Except I had never signed it.
I touched the page. “That’s not mine.” “It’s an excellent forgery,” Daniel said. “But it isn’t valid. The county recorder flagged the filing because a required secondary ID was missing.” I looked up. “So the transfer failed?” “Yes.” Relief came for half a second. Then Daniel continued. “But someone still attempted to steal a portion of your house.”
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I looked back at the date. October 14. And suddenly I remembered exactly where I had been. The memory hit me so hard I stopped breathing. The previous October, Ethan had surprised me with a four-day solo retreat. “You’ve been exhausted, Rach,” he had said, standing in the kitchen with a printed itinerary. “No kids. No clients. No work. Just massages, sleep, and quiet.”
I had cried. He had seemed thoughtful. Loving. The resort was called Cedar Ridge Lodge, high in the Colorado mountains. It was exclusive. And it had a strict digital-detox policy. Guests handed over their phones upon arrival. For four days, I had been disconnected from everything. My work. My accounts. My home. He had not sent me away because he wanted me to rest. He had sent me away because he needed me unreachable.
