Chapter 4 - The Mortgage Document Claire Had Never Signed
Claire requested copies of everything tied to the house.
Mortgage.
Home-equity documents.
Liens.
Credit agreements.
Her attorney, Sloane Mercer, warned her not to assume wrongdoing merely because Mason had handled paperwork she had not personally reviewed.
Claire agreed.
Then Sloane found the document.
Two years earlier, a home-equity credit facility had been opened against the property.
Mason’s signature appeared.
Claire’s appeared too.
She stared at it.
“That isn’t my signature.”
Sloane looked at her carefully.
“Are you certain?”
“I know my own name.”
The signature looked close.
Close enough for somebody who had seen her handwriting for years.
Claire thought about Mason.
Her stomach tightened.
“How much?”
“Original facility was $350,000.”
Claire stopped breathing for a second.
“How much is outstanding?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The paperwork referenced Harrow Family Management as a servicing contact.
Lenora again.
Sloane cautioned Claire that the document alone did not tell them who signed it, who witnessed it, or what happened afterward.
But it established one fact.
Someone had represented Claire as agreeing to put the marital home behind a substantial debt.
She had not.
Claire called Mason.
This time she did not raise her voice.
“Did you sign my name?”
Mason went silent.
“Mason.”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
Claire almost dropped the phone.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I know how it sounds.”
“You know how everything sounds because you keep doing things that sound insane.”
“Claire, please.”
“What was the money for?”
“The company was short.”
“Your mother’s company?”
“My parents’ development company.”
“And you used our house?”
“I thought it would be repaid in six months.”
“You thought.”
“I made a terrible decision.”
“Did you know my signature wasn’t real?”
Another silence.
That one answered her.
Claire closed her eyes.
“You knew.”
“I knew the paperwork had been handled.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I didn’t sign your name.”
“But you knew I hadn’t.”
Mason said nothing.
Claire’s hand moved automatically to her belly.
The man who frightened her out of the house had already betrayed her years earlier.
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Last night suddenly felt less like a breakdown.
It felt like the latest layer of something he had been hiding for a very long time.
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