Chapter 2 - THE CLOSING SCHEDULED FOR MORNING
The emergency-room doctor diagnosed influenza A, severe dehydration, and the beginning of pneumonia.
“You should have come in yesterday,” she said.
“I was told I was being dramatic.”
She looked at the bruise forming across my cheek.
“By the same person who did that?”
I nodded.
A nurse photographed my face and gave me information about domestic-violence services. A Wheaton police officer took my statement before medication finally reduced my temperature.
Rachel arrived shortly after midnight wearing sweatpants beneath her wool coat and carrying two legal pads.
She had been my closest friend at the firm and the person who argued hardest when I resigned.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Apparently I also look homeless.”
“Not with the property taxes you pay.”
She sat beside the hospital bed and examined the photographs of the quitclaim deed.
“The signature is forged.”
“I know.”
“The notary?”
“Marissa Cole. I don’t recognize the name.”
Rachel searched the Illinois notary database.
Marissa’s business address belonged to Lakeshore Private Lending in Oak Brook.
Olivia Grant—the woman from Ethan’s hotel reservation—worked there as a senior loan officer.
Rachel looked up from her phone.
“His affair partner notarized a deed transferring your house?”
“Maybe her coworker did.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
At 1:20 a.m., Rachel sent an emergency fraud notice to the DuPage County recorder, the title insurer, and the lender named in the deed packet. She also contacted a family-law attorney at our former firm because she no longer handled domestic cases.
None of those actions erased the recorded deed that night.
They preserved my objection and warned anyone attempting to rely on it.
The house would remain disputed until the lender, title company, and possibly a judge examined the evidence.
“Your line about evicting Patricia was satisfying,” Rachel said, “but she’s been living there long enough to claim tenancy.”
“I know.”
“You’ll need written notice. If she refuses, you file for possession.”
“I know that too.”
“Ethan may be excluded sooner if you receive an order of protection.”
I touched my swollen cheek.
“Start both.”
Rachel reviewed the divorce papers next.
“He didn’t sign the settlement.”
“He wanted me to.”
“You signed acknowledgment of service and nothing else. Good.”
“He barely checked.”
“Then the settlement wasn’t the document he cared about.”
At three in the morning, the title company responded.
Mercer Family Holdings had used the deed to support a $780,000 private loan secured by my house. The closing was scheduled for nine-thirty that morning.
Funds were supposed to be wired to three recipients:
Ethan’s struggling restaurant-development company.
A credit account in Patricia’s name.
And a trust administered for the estate of Ethan’s late father, Martin Mercer.
I stared at the third name.
“Martin’s estate closed last year.”
Rachel turned the screen toward me.
“Apparently someone reopened a claim.”
Martin had died fourteen months earlier after a long decline following a stroke. I had left my firm to manage his appointments, medications, insurance appeals, and home care.
Ethan traveled constantly.
Patricia said caregiving made her anxious.
I had believed stepping away from work was temporary.
Then Martin’s condition worsened, my clients were reassigned, and temporary became four years.
“Why would Ethan borrow against my house to pay his father’s estate?” I asked.
“We need the estate records.”
Rachel requested copies through probate counsel.
Before sunrise, another bank alert appeared.
Ethan had moved nearly all of our joint savings into an account held by Mercer Family Holdings.
The transfer occurred two hours before he slapped me.
The proposed divorce agreement had not been designed to give him my money.
The money was already gone.
He wanted my signature to create a story explaining why I had supposedly agreed to let it go.
At seven, the police officer called.
Ethan claimed I had struck him first and become confused from fever medication. Patricia supported his account.
“The kitchen footage should resolve that,” the officer said.
“Unless they delete it.”
“Do you have a copy?”
“Several.”
Rachel watched me end the call.
“They’re going to say you were incompetent when you signed.”
“Then they can explain why they demanded a signature.”
The private lender froze the closing pending investigation.
That stopped the money from moving.
It did not explain why Martin’s closed estate needed hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Rachel received the probate index at 8:46 a.m.
A claim had been filed against Martin’s estate by a company called Hawthorne Care Management.
The amount was $412,600.
I recognized the name.
Hawthorne had supposedly provided Martin’s home nursing during the final year of his life.
May you like
But I had been the person caring for him.
No Hawthorne nurse had ever entered our house.
