Chapter 6: The Lawyer, the Lien, and the Threat That Backfired
Her name was Patricia Holt.
David had given me her card the night before, and I called her at eight the next morning from Ryan's kitchen table.
She picked up on the second ring.
"I've been expecting your call," she said.
"David briefed me last night.
I've already pulled the deed transfer.
Can you come in at ten?"
Ryan drove me.
He sat in the waiting room while Patricia and I went through everything at a long table covered in documents.
She was in her late fifties, precise, unhurried.
She read without reacting.
When she finished the last page, she set it down and folded her hands.
"The transfer is challengeable," she said.
"The document Carl had you sign was buried inside a refinancing packet.
You weren't given independent legal advice.
You weren't informed of the nature of what you were signing.
Under these circumstances, we can argue fraudulent inducement."
"Can we stop the sale?"
"I'm filing for an emergency injunction this afternoon.
That freezes the property.
Nothing can be transferred, sold, or encumbered while the challenge is active." She paused.
"I also want to talk about the text message you received last night."
I slid my phone across the table.
She read it.
"Do you know who sent this?"
"No.
The number is unfamiliar."
"Forward it to me.
Depending on the context, this may constitute intimidation of a party in a legal dispute.
That's useful." She set the phone down.
"Has Carl attempted to contact you directly?"
"Three times this morning.
I didn't answer."
"Good.
Don't.
All communication goes through me from this point." She looked at me steadily.
"I want to ask you something, and I need you to think carefully.
In the past year, have you noticed any large withdrawals from joint accounts?
Transfers you didn't authorize?
New accounts you weren't told about?"
I thought about it.
"Last spring," I said slowly.
"I noticed our savings balance was lower than I expected.
Carl said he'd moved money into a different account for tax purposes.
I didn't question it."
Patricia wrote something down.
"How much lower?"
"About forty thousand dollars."
She wrote something else.
She didn't look surprised.
"I'll need access to five years of joint financial records," she said.
"Carl may have been positioning assets for some time.
The house transfer could be one piece of a larger picture."
I sat with that for a moment.
"He was very careful," I said.
"He was very patient about it."
"Yes," Patricia said.
"But he made one significant mistake."
"What was that?"
"He told Marcus." She closed her folder.
"And Marcus kept the recording."
Ryan was quiet on the drive back.
Halfway home he said, without looking away from the road: "Did you have any idea?
Any at all?"
"I had feelings I talked myself out of," I said.
"That's different from knowing."
He nodded slowly.
"He called me this morning," Ryan said.
"Before you were up.
He said you were overreacting.
He said David had a personal grudge against him and was using you to settle a score."
I looked out the window.
"What did you say?"
"I said I'd heard the recording." Ryan's hands tightened on the wheel.
"He hung up."
That afternoon, Patricia filed the injunction.
By four o'clock, it had been granted.
The property sale was frozen.
Carl's attorney called Patricia within the hour.
She called me at five.
"His attorney has proposed a settlement meeting," she said.
"Carl wants to negotiate."
"What does that mean?"
"It means the injunction scared him.
It means he knows the recording exists and he knows what it proves." A pause.
"It also means he's going to come to that table with something he thinks will change your position."
"What could he possibly have?"
"I don't know yet," Patricia said.
"But prepare yourself.
People in his situation often produce something they've been holding back.
Something personal.
Something they believe will destabilize you."
I thought about twenty-three years.
All the things Carl knew about me.
All the things I had told him in the dark, in the quiet, in the years when I still believed we were on the same side.
"Whatever it is," I said, "I'll be ready."
Patricia's voice was calm and certain.
May you like
"I know you will," she said.
"I'll see you Thursday."
