Chapter 8 - The Third Key.
Rachel drove Emily home, but Emily spent the entire ride thinking about the unidentified person with access to Unit 319.
Michael had claimed Cedar Ridge involved only him, Lauren, and a lawyer.
The storage manager had just proven someone else was involved.
When Emily entered the house, Michael was on the phone in the hallway.
He ended the call the moment he saw her.
"Who was that?"
"Work."
"Show me."
Michael stared at her.
"No."
"Then I assume it wasn't work."
"You don't get to inspect every conversation I have."
"You're right."
Emily set her purse down.
"But you don't get to stay here while I'm trying to figure out what you did."
Michael blinked.
"What?"
"Pack a bag."
"Emily."
"You can stay with your mother."
"This is my house too."
"And my lawyer can explain the temporary arrangements if you want to make this difficult."
Michael stared at her with a mixture of hurt and anger that would have worked on Emily twenty-four hours earlier.
Now it looked like strategy.
"You're treating me like a criminal."
"I'm treating you like someone who attached my signature to a document I never approved."
He went upstairs.
Emily remained in the kitchen and checked the home security system.
The front door log showed no unusual entries overnight.
Then she checked the garage camera.
At 11:32 p.m., a black SUV had stopped across the street.
It remained for nine minutes.
The license plate was blurred by rain.
A person wearing a hooded jacket stepped out, walked toward the side of the house, then disappeared from view.
Emily felt her pulse quicken.
At 11:41, the person returned to the SUV carrying something flat under one arm.
The same time the unknown code was used at the storage facility did not fit.
The drive between Emily's house and the facility was at least twenty minutes.
That meant there might be two more people involved.
Or the storage manager's access log time had been misread.
Emily sent the footage to Rachel and Dana.
Michael came downstairs with a duffel bag.
"I'm staying at a hotel."
"Fine."
He paused by the door.
"I know you hate me right now."
"I don't know what I feel."
"I never wanted to hurt you."
Emily looked at him.
"You didn't accidentally borrow my identity."
Michael flinched.
"I was desperate."
"For what?"
"To make Cedar Ridge work."
"Why?"
"Because I needed one thing in my life to become what I said it would become."
Emily almost felt sorry for him.
Then she remembered Lauren's messages.
"Was kissing my sister part of becoming what you said you would become?"
Michael looked down.
"No."
"Go."
He left.
Five minutes later, Rachel called.
"I enhanced a still from the SUV footage."
"The plate?"
"No."
"The person?"
"Maybe."
Rachel sent a frame.
The hood covered most of the face, but the person's left hand was visible under the porch light.
A heavy square ring sat on the index finger.
Emily recognized it.
Darren Pike wore the same ring in the profile photograph on his law firm's website.
Emily called Dana.
"I think Pike came to my house last night."
Dana was quiet for a moment.
"Do you have proof?"
"A video still."
"Send it."
Emily did.
Dana called back two minutes later.
"Do not contact him."
"Why would he come here?"
"To retrieve something."
"What?"
Emily suddenly remembered the study file drawer.
She ran down the hall.
The Cedar Ridge folder was still there.
The partnership agreement was still there.
The hotel receipt was still there.
But one folder was missing.
HOUSE.
Emily had seen it the night before.
It contained their deed, mortgage documents, and insurance papers.
Now the slot was empty.
She called Michael.
"Did you take the house file?"
"No."
"Think carefully before you answer."
"I didn't take it."
"Pike was here last night."
Michael went silent.
Emily closed her eyes.
"You knew he was coming."
"I didn't invite him."
"That wasn't my question."
Michael exhaled slowly.
"He texted me that he needed a document."
"What document?"
"I don't know."
"You keep building your defense out of ignorance."
"Emily, listen to me."
His voice changed.
The panic was back.
"Check the deed."
"The file is gone."
"Then check the county records online."
Emily opened the county registry website.
She entered their address.
A recent filing appeared at the top.
Recorded six days earlier.
Quitclaim deed.
Emily clicked the image.
Her name appeared as grantor.
Michael's name appeared as co-grantor.
The property had been transferred to Carter Residential Holdings LLC.
Emily stared at the screen.
"What is Carter Residential Holdings?"
Michael whispered the answer.
"Lauren's company."
Before checking the county records, Emily walked through the upstairs hallway and looked at the framed photographs lining the wall.
One showed the day she and Michael bought the house.
They were standing on the front steps holding a set of oversized keys their real-estate agent had brought as a joke.
Michael had lifted Emily off the ground after the photograph was taken.
They had spent that first night sleeping on an air mattress because their furniture had not arrived.
Emily remembered the rain tapping the windows and Michael promising they would grow old there.
Now a document filed six days earlier claimed the house belonged to a company Emily had never heard of.
The betrayal felt almost absurdly bureaucratic.
No one had broken a window.
No one had changed the locks.
The kitchen still smelled like coffee.
Yet a few signatures and stamps had attempted to move ownership somewhere else while Emily slept upstairs.
She photographed every room before leaving for Dana's office.
Rachel asked why.
"Because I'm done assuming the things I can see are the things I still own."
Rachel did not tell her she was overreacting.
She simply helped photograph the basement files, the garage, and the small safe in the bedroom closet.
Inside the safe, Emily found the original purchase closing statement.
Her name and Michael's name appeared side by side.
She held the page for a long moment.
May you like
A marriage could begin with two names beside each other and still become a fight over who had the right to use the other one.
THE THURSDAY CALL
