I sat at the folding table with the notebook in front of me while Liam stood near the window, listening for sounds in the hallway. The room had grown dim after he closed the curtains, and for the first time I understood how long he had been living with fear. “Page one,” he repeated.
I opened the cover. His handwriting filled the first page. County parcel number. Recording date.
Instrument number. Transfer type. Grantee.
I looked up.
“What is this?”
“The property record.”
I read the name again. David Mercer. My ex-husband. “That’s not possible.”
“I know.”
“The deed is in my name.”
“Was.”
I felt the muscles in my jaw tighten. “Show me.”
Liam opened his laptop. The screen was cracked at one corner. He logged into the county register of deeds and pulled up a public index.
There it was.
A deed recorded almost eight months earlier. My name appeared as grantor.
David’s name appeared as grantee. I stared at the screen.
“That signature isn’t mine.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“I compared it.”
He turned the notebook. A later page contained photographs Liam had printed at the campus library.
One was my signature from the original purchase documents. One was the signature on the recorded deed. At a glance, they looked similar.
Not identical. “Who filed this?” “That’s what I started trying to find out.”
I looked at the recorded document again. It appeared notarized.
A notary seal. A signature.
A date. Everything needed to make an ordinary person assume it was legitimate. “Did you call me?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
I searched my memory. Nothing.
Liam saw my face.
“You were in Toronto for work.”
“I still had my phone.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked toward the window.
“Because Dad found out I was checking.”
That answer froze me. “How?”
“I don’t know.”
Liam sat opposite me. He looked exhausted. “It started with mail.”
“What mail?”
“Property-tax notice. It came here, but Dad’s name was on it.” “You opened it?”
“It was the house address.
I thought it was a mistake.” He contacted the county. The clerk told him the tax record matched the recorded deed.
Liam assumed it was a clerical error.
So he called David. “What did he say?”
“That you transferred the house.”
I laughed once. There was no humor in it. “And you believed him?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But he said you didn’t tell me because you were planning to move.”
My stomach turned. “Move where?” “Back in with him.
Sort of.” I stared.
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“I know.”
Liam continued. David claimed we had privately agreed to restructure the property because I was traveling too much for work and did not want legal complications.
According to him, the house was now “family property.” That phrase made me angry immediately. “Family property.”
“Yeah.”
“Meaning his.”
“Basically.”
Liam told him he wanted proof. David became angry.
He said Liam was being disrespectful. Then he said something that made Liam suspicious. “You’re living there because I allow it.”
I felt the same coldness I had felt outside the beach house.
“What happened next?”
“I checked more.”
The notebook became a timeline. Dates.
Calls. County visits. Screenshots.
License plates.
Descriptions. Liam had documented everything.
Page five listed a white sedan. Page six listed dates he noticed it near campus.
“What is this?”
“The car.”
“What car?”
“The one that kept showing up.”
He saw it first outside the library. Then near the beach house.
Then outside the restaurant where he worked. Same white sedan. Same partial plate.
He never saw the driver clearly. At first, he told himself it was coincidence. Then one night he left work after closing and saw the sedan idling across the street.
When he walked toward his bike, the headlights came on. The car followed him for six blocks.
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“They took a report.”
“Then?”
“The car disappeared for four days.”
My skin prickled.
“And came back?”
He nodded. “Different place. Same plate.” I looked through the notebook. Page nine showed another name. Chloe.
“What did she do?”
“She started asking when I’d be home.”
“She’s your aunt.”
“She hadn’t texted me in months.”
The messages started after Liam contacted the county. What time are your classes? Are you staying at the house tonight? Do you keep important papers there?
Did your mom leave any property documents? I read the screenshots.
Every question looked harmless by itself. Together, they did not.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing useful.”
Then David came to Wilmington. He told Liam the family needed the house for “a little while.”
“For what?”
“Grandpa and Grandma were visiting. Chloe wanted beach time with the kids.” “You said no?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He laughed.”
Liam looked at me.
“He said I didn’t own it.”
Technically, Liam did not.
I did. Or I had. But David’s confidence mattered.
“What happened when you refused?”
“Someone came into my room.”
I stopped breathing for a second. “What?”
“I came back from class and my desk drawer was open.”
“Was anything missing?”
“Copies of the original closing papers.”
I stood.
The chair scraped the floor. “You had copies?”
“You gave me the house binder.”
I remembered.
Insurance. Utilities. Closing records. Maintenance contacts.
I had left it with him because he lived there full-time. “Did you tell anyone?” “Campus security first.”
“Not Wilmington police?”
“I didn’t know whether it was connected.”
His voice tightened. “Then Dad called that night and asked why I was keeping old property papers.”
I sat down again.
“How did he know?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer felt worse each time he said it. Liam’s notebook tracked the next two weeks.
The white sedan.
David’s calls. Chloe’s messages. Then Richard arrived unexpectedly.
“What did your grandfather want?”
“To talk.”
“About the house?”
“About growing up.”
I stared. Liam gave a tired half smile.
“He said I was eighteen and needed to stop letting you control everything.”
Richard encouraged him to move out.
He offered money for an apartment. He said living independently would be good for him.
“And you thought that was generous?”
“At first.”
Then Richard asked for Liam’s keys. Not permanently. Just temporarily. The family wanted to “use the property.”
Liam refused. Two days later, someone entered the house again. This time, nothing obvious was missing.
But the black notebook had been moved. That was when Liam stopped keeping it at the house.
He carried it everywhere. He started staying with a friend.
Then the friend received an anonymous message claiming Liam was involved in “a property fraud investigation.” The friend panicked. Liam moved out.
“How did Chloe end up inside?”
“I came back for clothes three weeks ago.”
“And?”
“The locks were changed.”
My chest tightened. “Who changed them?”
“I don’t know.”
He called David. David said the house needed “stability” and told Liam he could return once he stopped “creating trouble.”
“What trouble?”
“Looking into the deed.”
The answer sat between us. I turned another page.
There was a name I did not recognize. Marissa Cole. “Who is this?”
“A notary.”
I looked toward the recorded deed on the laptop.
“The notary?”
He nodded. “I found her.”
“Where?”
“Not where the document says.”
The deed listed a notary commission in New Hanover County. Liam found a Marissa Cole with the same commission number.
But she had moved to South Carolina nearly a year before the transfer date. He contacted her.
“She denied notarizing it?”
“She denied ever meeting you.”
My heart started pounding again.
“Did she put that in writing?”
Liam opened the notebook to the final section. A printed email was clipped inside. Marissa’s words were short.
I did not notarize this document.
I do not know Sarah Mercer. My seal was stolen from my vehicle approximately ten months ago. A police report was filed.
I stared at the page. The room felt suddenly smaller. “This is fraud.”
“I know.”
“David forged a deed.”
“I don’t know who did it.”
I looked at him. For the first time, I heard Laura Benton’s voice from another story in my head, though no Laura existed here: evidence, not emotion. Liam had learned the lesson on his own. Facts first.
Conclusions later.
Then he turned to the last page. Three license plates.
Two names. One address.
And a note written heavily enough to dent the paper beneath it. DO NOT GO ALONE. “What is this?”
Liam looked toward the window.
“The man in the white sedan.”
“You found him?”
“I think so.”
“Who is he?”
Liam swallowed.
“A private investigator.”
