I didn’t sleep that night.
Abigail did, eventually.
My mother made up the guest room for us, and Christopher stayed downstairs on the sofa because none of us felt comfortable being alone.
Every time headlights passed the front windows, my body stiffened.
Every time my phone vibrated, I expected Gregory.
At 2:13 a.m., another message arrived.
You are destroying everything over something a child misunderstood.
At 2:26:
Christopher is using this against you.
At 2:41:
Come home before you make this permanent.
I didn’t respond.
The police officer had told me not to.
Instead, I took screenshots.
At seven in the morning, Catherine placed coffee in front of me.
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
She sat across from me.
For several minutes, we listened to Abigail moving around upstairs.
Then Catherine said, “You need a lawyer.”
“I know.”
“Not just for the apartment.”
I looked at her.
“For everything.”
At nine, I called the attorney who had handled my divorce.
Her name was Rebecca Sloan.
When I explained what had happened, she cleared her morning schedule.
By ten-thirty, Christopher and I were sitting in her office while Catherine stayed with Abigail.
Rebecca studied the purchase agreement photo, the title company email and Gregory’s messages.
Then she asked me to forward everything.
“When did you agree to sell?”
“I didn’t.”
“Did you sign a listing agreement?”
“No.”
“Power of attorney?”
“No.”
“Any document allowing Gregory to act on your behalf?”
“Absolutely not.”
Rebecca’s eyes stayed on the screen.
“Then someone has a problem.”
For the first time since the bus ride, I felt something close to relief.
It lasted thirty seconds.
Rebecca turned her laptop toward me.
“I pulled the public transaction notice.”
My apartment was listed as under contract.
The sale price was almost eighty thousand dollars below market value.
“What?”
Christopher leaned forward.
“Who’s buying it?”
Rebecca pointed.
“Lakefront Residential Partners LLC.”
I didn’t recognize the name.
Neither did Christopher.
Rebecca did another search.
The company had been formed only three months earlier.
Its registered agent was a man named Darren Vale.
“Do you know him?” she asked.
I shook my head.
Christopher stared at the name.
“Wait.”
He took out his phone and scrolled.
Then he found an old photograph from Abigail’s birthday dinner months earlier.
Gregory was standing beside a tall man in a brown jacket.
“That’s Darren.”
I remembered him.
Gregory had introduced him as an old college friend.
They had spent most of the evening discussing real estate.
I had barely listened.
Rebecca’s expression became grim.
“You need to tell the detective.”
The title company agreed to freeze the closing within twenty minutes of Rebecca’s call.
That should have made me feel safe.
Instead, the situation got worse.
At 11:17, the title agent emailed us a scanned copy of the paperwork Gregory had submitted.
There was my name.
My address.
My passport number.
My property information.
And on the final page—
my signature.
It looked perfect.
I stared at it until my eyes burned.
“I didn’t sign that.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I believe you.”
Christopher said, “Can they fake it that easily?”
“Signatures can be copied. What matters is how it was supposedly executed.”
She scrolled.
A notary seal appeared below it.
Rebecca froze.
“This says you signed in person last Thursday.”
Last Thursday, I had been at Abigail’s school science night from five until eight.
There were photographs.
Teachers.
Parents.
Security cameras.
I had never been near a notary.
Rebecca called the notary listed on the page.
The woman answered after several attempts.
She sounded confused.
Then frightened.
She had never met me.
Worse, her commission number had been stolen from a public filing.
The seal was counterfeit.
Now the case was no longer a domestic dispute.
It was attempted real estate fraud.
The detective called before lunch.
He wanted Gregory brought in for questioning.
But when officers reached my apartment, Gregory was gone.
So were the documents from the kitchen table.
My passport.
Abigail’s birth certificate.
The original deed folder.
Everything.
He had left behind clothes, toiletries and even his expensive coffee machine.
But the documents were gone.
The detective advised me to wait before returning.
At four that afternoon, two officers escorted Christopher and me to the apartment.
The second I stepped inside, I knew someone had searched it.
Cabinet doors were open.
Desk drawers pulled out.
My bedroom closet had been emptied onto the floor.
Gregory’s side of the closet was nearly untouched.
Mine looked like a storm had gone through it.
Christopher stood in the doorway.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For not seeing this.”
I looked at him.
“We’re divorced. It wasn’t your job.”
His face tightened.
“Abigail is my job.”
That hurt because he was right.
Not because he had failed.
Because I had allowed Gregory to convince me that Christopher’s concern was interference.
I walked into Abigail’s bedroom.
Her stuffed rabbit was on the floor.
Her night-light had been unplugged.
I imagined her waking up and seeing Gregory by her closet.
I nearly became sick.
Then Christopher noticed something.
“What’s that?”
A small tablet lay partly hidden beneath Abigail’s bed.
It was an old device she used for games and drawing.
The screen was cracked.
When I picked it up, it lit automatically.
A recording app was open.
I called Abigail.
“Sweetheart, did you record anything last night?”
There was a pause.
“No.”
“Did you leave your tablet on?”
“Oh. I was recording my story.”
She loved making pretend radio shows.
“I forgot to stop it.”
Christopher and I looked at each other.
My fingers trembled as I opened the file.
Two hours and seventeen minutes.
Most of it was Abigail whispering a fairy tale.
Then silence.
Then the sound of her sleeping.
At 1:06 a.m., a door opened.
Footsteps.
Gregory’s voice.
Faint but recognizable.
I turned up the volume.
“…Tuesday. She won’t know until it’s done.”
A second voice came through the phone speaker, too distorted to identify.
Gregory again:
“No, the kid is registered somewhere else. That makes it easier.”
Pause.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Once Alison signs, you wire the first amount.”
My heart pounded.
Then:
“They can take the girl later. I need her mother focused on the move.”
Christopher closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
“I already have the intake forms.”
Intake forms.
I looked at Christopher.
“For what?”
The recording didn’t answer.
Gregory walked away.
A minute later, a drawer opened.
Then the audio ended.
We gave the tablet to police.
That evening, the detective called.
They had found something else in Gregory’s abandoned laptop bag.
A brochure.
A private residential behavioral program in northern Wisconsin.
For children.
I stared at the email attachment he sent me.
The program advertised itself as a place for “short-term stabilization” for children experiencing behavioral difficulties.
Abigail had no behavioral difficulties.
She was eight years old.
She loved books, pancakes and drawing horses.
Then I saw the application.
Child’s name:
ABIGAIL PARKER
Parent:
ALISON PARKER
Reason for placement:
Severe defiance, emotional instability, aggression toward mother’s partner.
My hands began shaking.
At the bottom was my electronic signature.
Another fake.
The requested admission date was Wednesday.
The day after the apartment closing.
I stopped breathing.
Christopher whispered, “He was going to send her away.”
Rebecca, who was listening by phone, corrected him.
“He was going to try.”
There was another document.
A temporary authorization allowing Gregory to transport Abigail.
My signature again.
Forged again.
The detective asked whether Gregory had ever discussed Abigail’s behavior.
I remembered everything.
How he told me she was too attached to me.
How he said Christopher spoiled her.
How he suggested she needed stricter discipline.
How he repeatedly described normal childhood emotions as manipulation.
Gregory hadn’t been reacting to Abigail.
He had been building a story about her.
A story he could use later.
That night, police located Darren Vale.
He denied knowing anything illegal.
He claimed Gregory had told him I desperately needed money and wanted a fast private sale.
But when investigators asked why the price was so low, Darren stopped answering questions.
Then my phone rang from an unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Rebecca told me to answer and record.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice said, “Is this Alison Parker?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Melissa Grant.”
I didn’t recognize it.
“I saw a picture of your boyfriend today.”
My body went cold.
“What about him?”
Her next words made me grip the table.
“He wasn’t Gregory when I knew him.”
I looked at Christopher.
The woman continued.
“His name was Greg, yes. But he used a different last name.”
“Who are you?”
There was a long silence.
Then she said:
“I’m the woman whose condominium he tried to sell three years ago.”
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