Chapter 6: You Don't Know Everything Yet
I photographed the text and called Hale before I called Paul.
"Forward it to me immediately," Hale said.
"Don't respond.
Don't delete it."
"Is this Fitch?"
"Possibly.
Could also be someone acting on Teresa's behalf.
We'll trace the number." A pause.
"Mr.
Bradley, I want to ask you directly — is there anyone else in your family who might be involved in this?
Beyond Mason?"
I thought about it.
"My aunt Betsy.
She was at the party.
She's the one who told Amy to prepare everything."
"Is she close to Teresa?"
"They've been friends since before I was born.
They grew up on the same street."
"Has she had access to your home?"
I stopped.
Betsy had a spare key.
I had given it to her two years ago when Amy was in her third trimester and I was worried about emergencies.
I had never asked for it back.
"Yes," I said.
"I'll need her full name."
---
I didn't tell Amy about the text that night.
She had finally gotten Frederick down for a full sleep and had fallen asleep herself on the couch with a book open on her chest.
I covered her with a blanket and sat in the chair across from her in the dark.
The next morning I told her everything.
I had decided the night before that I would not protect her from information the way Teresa had counted on me doing.
That was how the whole thing had worked — everyone keeping Amy in the dark, managing what she knew, controlling what she felt.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she set down her coffee.
"What does 'this gets worse for your wife' mean?" she said.
"I don't know yet."
"Do they have something?
Something they think they can use?"
"Hale is looking into it."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Connor, before we got married — I told you about the debt I had from my first apartment.
The eviction."
"I remember."
"Teresa asked me about it once.
About two years ago.
She said she was just curious about my background.
I told her everything.
The landlord dispute, the judgment against me, all of it." She looked at the table.
"I thought she was trying to understand me."
"She was building a file."
Amy nodded slowly.
"If they try to use that — the eviction, the old debt — to make me look unreliable as a witness—"
"It won't work.
Paul already knows.
We'll get ahead of it."
"Are you sure?"
"The recording alone is enough to bury the property fraud case.
Whatever they try to use against you, it doesn't change what she said on that call."
Amy picked up her coffee again.
Her hands were steady.
"I want to be in the room," she said.
"When this goes to court.
I want to sit there and look at her."
"You will be."
She nodded.
That was enough for now.
---
Paul called at noon with something none of us had expected.
"The handwriting analyst came back early," he said.
"The signature on the transfer document is not Gary Fitch's."
"Then whose is it?"
"It's Mason's."
I sat down on the edge of the desk.
"Mason told Hale he didn't know what was in the folder."
"Mason lied." Paul's voice was careful.
"He wasn't just carrying the folder for Teresa.
He signed your name.
He's the one who forged the document."
"He's twenty-four years old."
"He's twenty-four years old facing a felony forgery charge." A pause.
"Hale brought him back in this morning.
He broke within the first hour.
He gave them everything — dates, amounts, who contacted Fitch, who planned the timing around your travel schedule." Another pause.
"Connor, it goes back further than February.
The plan started eleven months ago."
Eleven months.
Frederick had been two months old.
"Teresa started planning this when my son was two months old," I said.
Paul didn't answer that.
There was nothing useful to say.
"There's one more thing," he said.
"Mason told them why the party had to happen on Frederick's first birthday specifically."
"Why?"
"Because Teresa had found a clause in your mortgage agreement.
If the property transfer was completed and uncontested for thirty days, it would trigger an automatic refinancing option in her name.
The birthday party was a distraction.
She needed you occupied, emotionally off-balance, and away from your paperwork for the rest of that weekend."
I looked at the birthday cake still sitting on the counter.
Amy hadn't thrown it out yet.
"She used my son's birthday," I said.
"Yes."
I ended the call.
May you like
I stood in the kitchen for a long moment.
Then I picked up the cake and put it in the trash.
