I opened the Summit County Fiscal Office website, and I searched for Lorraine Bennett's condominium.
It took four minutes.
Open-end mortgage. $138,000. Lender: Great Lakes Home Credit. Notarized Saturday, September 5th. Recorded Wednesday, September 9th.
I clicked the scanned document. There was Lorraine's signature at the bottom: Lorraine M. Bennett.
Notarized on Saturday, September fifth.
The day Lorraine was standing on a pier in Erie, with an ice cream cone in her hand, eighty miles away.
I looked at the notary's name.
Brent Sikora. One of Derek's golf buddies. He worked at a title company.
I sat back in my chair.
My father's voice was in my head, as clear as if he were standing behind me. People lie, Nora. Paper doesn't.
They hadn't only been planning to take my house. Derek had already forged his own mother's signature to borrow a hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars against her home, and spent it on sports bets. Now he needed Linden Street to cover the hole before Lorraine found out.
He wasn't planning to get rich. He was planning not to be caught.
And Lorraine, I thought slowly, Lorraine doesn't know.
The lab results came on Wednesday, November eleventh.
Dr. Park called me herself. I was standing in the middle of my kitchen, staring at the refrigerator, when my phone rang.
"Nora." Her voice was tight. "It's confirmed. The hair sample shows repeated exposure to a sedative-hypnotic, beginning roughly three to four weeks before the sample was taken. The residue from the thermos is a match for the pills in the bottle."
I put a hand on the counter.
"You're not sick," Dr. Park said. "You're not losing your mind. Somebody did this to you, and I have it in writing."
I closed my eyes.
"Thank you," I whispered. "Thank you for believing me."
"Nora, I want you out of that house."
"Not yet. Three more days."