to answer a few questions.
The nurse checked with me before allowing the conversation to continue.
I nodded.
The detective placed a folder on my tray, carefully moving the divorce agreement aside.
“We’re investigating a deed that was submitted for recording this morning,” she explained.
“It concerns the Orchard Road farmhouse.”
Dylan immediately interrupted.
“That’s my parents’ property.
Sabrina Vale handled the financial rescue.
Why are you bothering my wife?”
Detective Calder looked directly at him.
“Because your wife is the lawful owner.”
She produced the company’s property documents and the recorded deed from the bank purchase.
Reed House Holdings LLC.
Managing member: Anna Reed.
Dylan stared at the papers.
For the first time that morning, he looked genuinely confused.
“You own Mom and Dad’s house?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“How?”
“I bought it.”
“With what money?”
“My money.”
He blinked several times.
I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
A man who had just announced that I possessed nothing could not understand how I had quietly purchased a property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But Detective Calder hadn’t finished.
She turned to a second document.
It was a deed purporting to transfer ownership from Reed House Holdings into an entity called Orchard Preservation Trust.
Sabrina Vale was named as the trust’s controlling trustee.
My signature appeared beneath the transfer language.
It was a convincing imitation.
But I hadn’t signed it.
The document stated that the execution had taken place at 6:14 that morning.
At that exact time, I was in the hospital, under continuous medical observation after surgery.
Nina had already provided my hospital timeline to investigators with my authorization.
“I didn’t authorize any transfer,” I told the detective.
“That’s consistent with the evidence we’ve collected,” she replied.
She explained that the fraudulent deed appeared to be part of a plan to obtain a $490,000 private loan secured by the farmhouse.
The financing documents represented the new trust as the legitimate owner.
The requested money would go to an account connected with Sabrina’s business.
Dylan shook his head.
“Sabrina said it was money for repairs.”
Detective Calder removed another page.
“Did you sign this identity-verification affidavit, Mr.
Mercer?”
He looked at the document.
His shoulders sagged.
“Yes, but—”
“Did you witness your wife sign the deed?”
“No.”
“Then why did you certify that she had authorized the transaction?”
He swallowed.
“Sabrina told me everything was routine.
She said it was a family property matter.
I trusted her.”
There was a terrible silence.
He had trusted Sabrina with a transaction he hadn’t understood, but he had never trusted me enough to ask about my own finances.
Detective Calder asked to show me a surveillance image from a private closing office where a woman had appeared that morning carrying documents connected to the transfer.
The photograph was slightly blurred.
The woman wore a cream coat and a scarf partly covering her face.
Her blonde hair was visible beneath the scarf.
But I barely noticed her face.
I was looking at her hand.
On her ring finger was a narrow gold band decorated with three tiny sapphires.
My grandmother’s wedding ring.
The one she had given me before I married Dylan.
The one he had removed from my finger when the nurses prepared me for surgery.
I looked at
