Chapter 9: Everything He Owns

My father drove with both hands on the wheel and did not look at me.

"Say it," I told him.

"Say what?"

"That you knew. Brent borrowed from Lakeshore for seven years, and you let me sign the papers every January and never said his name."

He kept his eyes on the road.

"His bank passed the loan up to us," he said. "I saw the name on the application. Brent Pruden. I asked my people who he was."

"And?"

"And he was a young man who married my daughter and never once asked what her father did for a living."

"Maybe he was being polite."

"Maybe." His jaw worked. "I said yes to the loan so I could watch him. I kept a file."

"You kept a file on my husband for seven years."

"I kept it on a man I didn't trust. I didn't want you to know, because I thought I was wrong."

"Dad."

"I hoped I was wrong, Leigh," my father said. "I'd have given the whole company to be wrong."

I looked out at the river.

I was too angry to cry, and too tired to be angry for long.

"The release," I said. "The paper that says Lakeshore gives up its claim on Friday. Did you sign one?"

"Of course not."

"Did I?"

"You would have to be in the room."

"Then he forged it. He forged the deed, too." I turned. "How does he know my handwriting that well?"

My father's face went hard.

"You signed his birthday cards for eight years," he said. "You signed every check you ever wrote him."

"So he's had eight years of practice."

"Yes."

"Then he has no idea who owns the paper he's forged on."

"He thinks it's a bank," my father said. "He thinks Lakeshore is a bank with a very long name."

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, I took out my phone and called Nick Garland.

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