Monday morning was cold and wet. Rain slapped against the windows of the county recorder’s office in South Bend.

The office smelled of damp coats and coffee when I walked in at 8 AM. My boss, Jerry, looked at me with pity.

He told me I should take the week off, but I shook my head.

My computer screen flickered as I logged into the property database.

Typing Portage Avenue into the search bar felt like holding a live wire.

My only goal was to check if Beatrice had listed the house yet.

What I found instead made my blood run cold.

A quitclaim deed had been filed at 9 AM that very morning.

It was a document transferring all rights of the property from Nick and me back to Beatrice Vance.

The signature at the bottom read “Nicholas Vance” in shaky blue ink. It was notarized by Greg Simmons, a local insurance agent who had been Beatrice’s boyfriend for 2 years.

The signature was dated May 15th.

But Nick died on May 13th.

My husband was already in the county morgue when he supposedly signed that deed.

My hands trembled so badly I dropped my pen.

Beatrice had forged her dead son’s signature to steal our home, and her boyfriend had notarized it.

Panic didn’t set in immediately. My years of searching deeds had trained me to look at facts, not emotions.

I walked straight to the county prosecutor’s office on the 3rd floor.

The d*ath certificate was in my hand. I showed the investigator, Deputy Miller, the official time of d*ath: May 13th at 4:12 PM.

Then I pushed the quitclaim deed across the desk, pointing to the date: May 15th.

“This deed is a forgery, Greg,” the investigator said over the phone to Greg Simmons, after calling him into the office.

Greg Simmons was called in immediately.

He arrived 30 minutes later, his leather boots squeaking on the linoleum.

Looking at the 2 documents side by side, his hands began to shake.

He admitted everything in a hushed whisper.