— he asked.
There was no fear in his voice.
Just logistics. Evelyn smirked, adjusting her scarf:
— “By then, it won’t matter. The equity will already be moved to Jason’s account. Real family has to look out for each other.”
Real family. I stopped the recording and set the phone down. The house was silent, but my head was screaming. The life I’d built for years was a house of cards.
Real family. That meant I wasn’t. I was just an asset. A resource.
A bank account. I took a deep breath and restarted the video.
They were sorting through the papers. Evelyn pointed at the documents:
— “We need this. The parcel number. The title. And the POA. My contact at the notary’s office will handle the rest. You sure she won’t suspect a thing?”
— “You baby her too much,” she told him. “You need to be firmer with her.”
I replayed those words three times. “Be firmer.” How many times lately had he been “firm” with me, and I’d excused it as stress? As a bad day at the office?
I stood up. My legs felt like lead, but my mind was a razor.
Panic is a luxury I couldn’t afford. I had the evidence. First, I emailed the video to myself and saved it to a secure cloud drive. Then I backed it up on a thumb drive.
Let them try to deny it. Then I called my real estate attorney.
The one who handled my grandmother’s estate years ago.
— “Good morning,” I said, my voice surprisingly calm. “I need an emergency consultation. Today.”
He told me to be there at noon. I had two hours.
I went into the office and opened the cabinet. The folder was there, tucked away neatly as if it hadn’t been touched.
But the papers inside were slightly out of order. They’d taken photos. I knew the drill. I put the entire folder in my bag. Then I called a locksmith.
— “I need the locks changed. Today. Within the next three hours,” I told them.
