Chapter 8: The Second Set
Seth was already on the phone with Grace Holloway when I showed him Ryan's messages.
He read them without interrupting his own call, then held up one finger.
"Grace," he said, "I need to add something.
There may be a second certified set of the transfer documents.
We don't know where they are." He listened.
"Yes.
Tonight if possible." He ended the call and looked at me.
"She can see us in an hour."
"What does she think?"
"She thinks we move fast." He pulled out of the storage facility lot.
"She also thinks Diana is smarter than she looked today."
"Diana didn't look stupid today," I said.
"She looked like someone whose plan got interrupted."
"That's what Grace is worried about."
We drove back to the church to collect Chloe.
Most of the guests had gone.
The caterers were standing in the parking lot looking uncertain.
The flowers were still on every pew.
Chloe was sitting in the front row with Lily asleep across her lap.
Patricia sat beside her.
They were not talking.
Chloe had one hand resting on Lily's hair and she was looking at the altar — at the spot where the veil had fallen, where the ring had slipped from my fingers, where Diana had stood with her hand over her ear.
I sat down next to her.
"How are you feeling?" I said.
"Strange," she said.
"Like the day happened to someone else and I'm only just catching up to it."
"We need to go see an attorney.
Tonight."
She nodded.
"There's something else." I kept my voice low.
"Diana had a second set of the documents made.
Certified copies.
We don't know where they are."
Chloe's hand stilled on Lily's hair.
"She would have given them to her attorney," she said quietly.
"Do you know who her attorney is?"
"No.
She never told me she had one." She paused.
"But three months ago she asked me to co-sign a lease renewal on her apartment.
I thought it was strange — she's lived there six years, she's never needed a co-signer before.
I said no.
She didn't push it." Chloe looked at me.
"What if it wasn't a lease?
What if she needed my signature for something else and the lease was just the cover story?"
I thought about that.
"Did you sign anything?"
"No.
I said no and she dropped it."
"Okay." I took her hand.
"Okay.
We tell Grace all of it."
Grace Holloway's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building downtown.
She was in her late fifties, small, with short silver hair and reading glasses she took on and off while she talked.
She did not offer condolences about the wedding.
She asked questions.
She asked them for ninety minutes.
When we finished she took off her glasses and set them on the desk.
"Here's what you have," she said.
"You have a power of attorney that Chloe signed under false pretenses — she was told it was for emergency medical decisions, not financial control.
That's misrepresentation.
Potentially fraud."
"Can we invalidate it?" I asked.
"We can challenge it.
Misrepresentation is harder to prove than forgery, but you have the letter." She tapped the blue binder.
"This letter is extraordinary.
She wrote, in her own hand, that she obtained the power of attorney under false pretenses and used it to execute a transfer she knew Chloe would not have consented to.
That is not a confession I would have expected her to leave lying around."
"She left it in case it went wrong," I said.
"She wanted Chloe to understand."
Grace looked at me over the binder.
"She wanted to be understood," she said.
"That's different." She put her glasses back on.
"The second set of documents is the immediate problem.
If her attorney files the property transfer with the county recorder before we get an injunction, we're in a much longer fight."
"How long do we have?"
"County recorder closes at five tomorrow.
It's seven-fifteen now." She picked up her phone.
"I'm going to call a colleague who handles emergency injunctions.
You two are going to sit there and not leave this office until I tell you what we're doing next."
She dialed.
Chloe leaned close to me.
"The lease," she said quietly.
"Three months ago.
I keep thinking about it."
"What about it?"
"She called me four times before she asked.
Four times in one week, which was more than she'd called in the previous two months.
And every call she asked how the wedding planning was going.
How Mark's business was doing.
Whether we'd decided on the venue yet." She stopped.
"She was building a timeline.
She was figuring out when the wedding would be so she could work backward to when she needed the documents ready."
I looked at her.
"She planned this for at least three months," Chloe said.
"Maybe longer."
Grace came back to the desk.
"My colleague is filing for the injunction tonight," she said.
"Emergency basis — fraud, misrepresentation, ongoing harm.
The judge on call is someone she knows." She sat down.
"But I need you to understand something.
Even if we get the injunction, even if we invalidate the power of attorney, even if every document Diana produced gets thrown out — the criminal side of this moves on its own timeline.
The police have what they have.
The hospital report will take until morning.
The notary witness will need to give a formal statement."
"Will she be charged?" Chloe asked.
Grace looked at her steadily.
"The dr*gging alone is a serious offense," she said.
"False imprisonment.
The assault on the child.
The fraudulent documents." She paused.
"Yes.
I believe she will be charged.
But I want you to be prepared for the fact that charged is not the same as convicted, and that this will take time."
Chloe nodded.
"There's one more thing," Grace said.
She looked at the binder.
"This letter.
I want to use it.
But I want you to understand that once it enters the legal record, it becomes public.
Reporters cover these cases.
People will read it."
Chloe was quiet for a moment.
"She wrote it for me," she said.
"She wanted me to read it."
"Yes."
"Then let people read it," Chloe said.
"Let them understand what she did and why she did it.
All of it." She looked at her hands.
"I'm not going to protect her from the truth of her own letter."
May you like
Grace picked up her pen.
Outside the window, the city was fully dark.
