Chapter 3 - The Forged Signature
Nora slammed her foot on the gas pedal and sped us away from the shattered glass of the mansion.
We arrived at her modest suburban home, and she immediately wrapped me in warm, dry blankets.
I fed Ava in the quiet living room, trying desperately to calm my racing, panicked heart.
Rachel arrived thirty minutes later, carrying a thick briefcase overflowing with legal documents.
She spread the printed copies of the forged quitclaim deed across Nora’s dining room table.
“The signature is a nearly perfect forgery, but it was supposedly notarized by a man named Arthur Vance,” Rachel explained.
Arthur Vance was a shady local accountant who frequently played golf with Grant on the weekends.
“He notarized this document at 2:00 PM on Tuesday,” Rachel said, pointing to the official black ink stamp.
“I was literally in the middle of a surgical C-section at 2:00 PM on Tuesday,” I said, my voice trembling with rage.
There was absolutely no physical way I could have signed a real estate transfer while heavily sedated on an operating table.
“We can prove it is a fake, but civil litigation will take at least three years to resolve,” Rachel warned grimly.
During those three years, Grant would have full legal access to live in the house and drain its equity.
The all-cash buyer, a massive corporate developer named Marcus Sterling, needed to close the deal by Friday.
Marcus wanted to demolish the entire neighborhood to build a luxury resort, and he was offering triple the market value.
“Marcus will walk away tomorrow if he sees a clouded title dispute,” Rachel stated flatly.
“We have to finalize the sale and wire the cash before Grant even knows what hit him,” I declared.
Rachel sighed heavily and rubbed her tired temples.
“The only way the title company bypasses the county record is if we hand them the original, physical deed with the raised seal,” she explained.
The original deed was securely locked inside the hidden wall safe in my master bedroom closet.
The exact same bedroom where Brooke was currently barricaded with heavy iron shears.
My phone chimed with a notification from a social media app.
Nora gasped as she looked over my shoulder at the bright screen.
Grant had just posted a new video from his luxurious Miami hotel suite.
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He was not just celebrating with his terrible mother.
He was pouring champagne over the hand of a stunningly beautiful blonde woman wearing a massive diamond engagement ring.
