Chapter 1 - The Silent Asset
The morning sun cast a cold glare across the heavy oak desk of Attorney Sterling.
I sat in his plush leather chair while Sophia played quietly with a wooden block on the floor.
I placed a thick folder of documents directly in front of him.
He adjusted his glasses and opened the file to inspect the original property deed.
He looked up at me with a completely bewildered expression.
"Your parents legally transferred this property to you five years ago to avoid a bankruptcy seizure," Sterling stated.
I nodded slowly as the memories of their desperate pleas rushed back to me.
"They threw me out last night because they think I forgot I own the place," I explained.
Sterling typed rapidly on his computer keyboard to check the county property registry.
I waited in silence while he verified that my name was still the sole legal owner of the apartment.
Suddenly, his typing stopped and his face grew dangerously pale.
He turned his computer monitor around so I could see the glowing screen.
"Laura, you might own the apartment, but someone just took out a massive loan against it," he warned.
I stared at the screen in absolute disbelief.
A second mortgage application had been approved just forty-eight hours ago for two hundred thousand dollars.
The application bore a digital signature that was supposed to be mine.
"I never signed any loan documents," I whispered.
"The funds are scheduled to be disbursed to an external account by noon today," Sterling replied.
He clicked on the routing information attached to the fraudulent application.
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The receiving bank account did not belong to my mother or my father.
The name on the destination account belonged to my sister, Karla.
