Chapter 5 - Patricia’s Second Set of Keys
Trevor did not come to the door.
He stood beside his car as though he had every right to be there.
Blake walked toward him.
Rebecca grabbed my arm.
“Stay inside.”
I did.
Elliot called the prosecutor’s investigator.
Patricia stood beside her luggage, looking between her son and Trevor.
Whatever confidence she had displayed earlier had vanished.
Blake stopped six feet from Trevor.
“What are you doing here?”
Trevor smiled.
“You stopped answering.”
“You called me once.”
“I’ve been calling all afternoon.”
“You told me Claire wasn’t supposed to find the deed.”
Trevor’s smile faded.
He glanced toward the house.
Then toward Patricia.
“You put me on speaker?”
Blake did not answer.
Trevor laughed.
“Of course you did.”
Patricia stepped toward him.
“You forged Claire’s name.”
He looked at her.
“That’s a serious accusation.”
“So deny it.”
“I don’t discuss business in driveways.”
I almost admired the nerve.
Rebecca opened the front door but stayed behind the threshold.
“Trevor Lane?”
He looked up.
“Yes?”
“Rebecca Shaw. Counsel for Claire Dawson.”
“I know who you are.”
That surprised her.
Only slightly.
“How?”
Trevor put his hands in his pockets.
“Small county.”
“You’re based forty miles away.”
“Still small.”
Rebecca’s voice sharpened.
“Did you submit a warranty deed transferring Claire Dawson’s property to Carrington Coastal Holdings?”
“No.”
“Did Peninsula Closing Services?”
“I’d have to check.”
“You work there.”
“So do nineteen other people.”
“Did you prepare the document?”
“No.”
“Do you hold a membership interest in Carrington Coastal Holdings?”
His eyes flicked toward Blake.
There.
One second.
Enough.
“Not anymore.”
Blake turned.
“What?”
Trevor shrugged.
“I assigned it.”
“To whom?”
“An investor.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Blake stared.
“You can’t do that without my approval.”
“Read your operating agreement.”
I watched my husband realize that the trap he had helped build might have been designed for him too.
“Who owns your interest?” Rebecca asked.
Trevor smiled again.
“That would be confidential.”
A vehicle pulled up behind him.
This one belonged to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
The smile disappeared.
An investigator stepped out.
Trevor did not run.
People like Trevor rarely imagined running until it was too late.
He stood perfectly still.
The investigator spoke to Rebecca first.
Then me.
Then Elliot.
Trevor was asked to remain available but was not arrested.
That disappointed Patricia.
“What do you mean he can leave?”
The investigator looked at her.
“Ma’am, this isn’t television.”
She closed her mouth.
They took photographs.
Copied the access log.
Collected the suspected forged deed.
Requested that everyone preserve electronic communications.
Then came the question I had been waiting for.
“Who had access to the house?”
I answered.
“Blake. Me. And apparently Patricia.”
The investigator looked at Patricia.
“You had a key?”
She nodded.
“One.”
I remembered the title of the chapter my life seemed to be writing for itself.
One.
Except Rebecca noticed something.
“When I asked for the key earlier, you never gave it to Claire.”
Patricia reached into her bag.
She pulled out a brass key.
Then hesitated.
Rebecca watched her.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
The investigator asked to see the key.
Patricia handed it over.
He compared it with the lock.
“It’s not for the front door.”
Patricia went pale.
Blake stared at her.
“Mom?”
She said nothing.
The investigator tried the key in the side entrance.
Nothing.
Garage interior door.
Nothing.
Then we reached my office.
The filing cabinet.
The key slid into the lock.
Perfectly.
I looked at Patricia.
She started talking immediately.
“Blake gave it to me.”
Blake almost shouted.
“I did not.”
“You said I could organize papers.”
“When?”
“At the apartment.”
“This isn’t the apartment.”
The investigator opened the drawer.
“Mrs. Carrington, how did you get a key to this cabinet?”
She gripped her purse.
“I found it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it before or after Claire moved her documents into this house?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
The cabinet had been in our old apartment.
I kept the key inside a small ceramic dish on my desk.
Two weeks before moving, it disappeared.
I assumed I had misplaced it.
Patricia had been helping Blake pack that day.
“You took it.”
She looked at me.
“No.”
“You took my filing-cabinet key before we moved.”
“I picked up a key.”
“And kept it.”
“I didn’t know what it opened.”
“But you brought it to my new house.”
Silence.
The investigator wrote something down.
Blake looked devastated.
Not for me.
For the reality that his mother had crossed a line he could no longer explain away.
“Mom.”
Patricia snapped.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Did you go through Claire’s files?”
“I was trying to help you.”
The room changed.
Everyone heard it.
Blake whispered:
“What did you do?”
Patricia sat down.
For the first time all day, she looked old.
Not frail.
Just suddenly sixty-eight.
“I knew you were drowning.”
He stared at her.
“You told me you needed the Port Townsend property for collateral.”
“I told you I hoped Claire might agree.”
“You said she would never agree.”
“That’s different.”
“You said if the house were inside the company first, she would understand once the deals were done.”
His face went white.
“I never said that.”
“You did.”
“When?”
“In my kitchen.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
I looked between them.
Their alliance was breaking in real time.
The same alliance that had spent years making me the unreasonable outsider.
Now each was trying to place the worst decision in the other’s hands.
Patricia continued.
“Trevor said everything could be corrected later.”
Blake stared.
“You talked to Trevor without me?”
She looked away.
“How many times?”
No answer.
“How many?”
“Several.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Did Trevor ask you for Claire’s signature samples?”
Patricia’s eyes filled with panic.
“I didn’t forge anything.”
“That was not the question.”
“I gave him copies.”
The room went still.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
“What copies?”
“Old Christmas cards.”
I stared.
“You gave Trevor my handwriting?”
“He said he needed to compare your legal name.”
“That sentence does not even make sense.”
“I know that now.”
“What else?”
Patricia began crying.
I had seen her cry before.
At funerals.
During arguments when she wanted Blake to comfort her.
When a waiter once spilled coffee near her purse.
This was different.
She was scared.
“I gave him a copy of your driver’s license.”
My knees almost gave out.
“Where did you get it?”
“Your file.”
I walked away from her.
I needed distance.
Blake spoke.
“Mom, why?”
“For you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I was trying to save what you built.”
“You helped someone steal Claire’s house.”
“I didn’t know he would file anything.”
“You gave him everything he needed.”
She covered her face.
The investigator remained calm.
“Did Mr. Lane instruct you to remove the closing folder?”
Patricia looked up.
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why is it missing?”
“I don’t know.”
The investigator did not believe her.
Neither did I.
Rebecca asked the question differently.
“Patricia, where is Claire’s closing folder?”
Patricia stared at the floor.
“In my suitcase.”
Blake closed his eyes.
I felt no surprise anymore.
Only exhaustion.
The investigator escorted her outside.
The folder was inside the gray suitcase.
Under two sweaters.
Every document was there.
Wire instructions.
Purchase agreement.
Copy of my identification.
Inheritance-account confirmation.
Title report.
Everything Trevor would need to understand exactly how the property was owned and why Blake had no legal claim.
The investigator placed the folder into an evidence bag.
Patricia whispered:
“I was going to put it back.”
I looked at her.
“When?”
No answer.
Rebecca touched my shoulder.
“Claire.”
I turned.
She held another paper that had been hidden inside the folder.
Not mine.
A printout.
An email chain between Patricia and Trevor.
The subject line read:
DAWSON DOCUMENT PACKAGE.
I read the messages.
Trevor: Need samples with full legal name.
Patricia: I can get them.
Trevor: Also need ID and proof of source funds.
Patricia: Why source funds?
Trevor: To understand how protected the asset is.
My throat tightened.
Protected.
They knew.
Trevor had specifically wanted to know how difficult the house would be to take.
Then I reached the last message.
Patricia: Blake cannot know how we handle this.
Trevor: He won’t.
I looked at Blake.
He was reading over my shoulder.
His face changed.
For the first time, I saw betrayal hit him.
The way betrayal had hit me upstairs when I found my clothes in the hallway.
Different scale.
Same disbelief.
“You went behind my back,” he whispered.
Patricia started crying again.
“I was saving you.”
“No. You were saving yourself.”
She shook her head.
Then Blake pointed at the Sequim land transaction.
“You wanted your two hundred ten thousand.”
Patricia stopped crying.
There it was.
Rebecca saw it.
So did I.
Blake laughed bitterly.
“You used my company to unload your land.”
“No.”
“You knew I was desperate.”
“I knew you needed capital.”
“You knew Claire had money.”
Patricia’s silence answered.
The investigator took her phone.
With permission at first.
Then, after consulting with the prosecutor, through formal process.
It was nearly dark by the time everyone began leaving.
Trevor had already driven away after being instructed not to destroy records.
Blake stood beside his SUV.
He looked toward me.
“I need somewhere to sleep.”
I almost reminded him about the couch.
I did not.
“You have your club membership.”
His face tightened.
“That’s cruel.”
“No. Cruel was telling your wife she belonged on a couch in a house she paid for.”
He looked away.
Patricia’s car service arrived.
She climbed inside without saying goodbye.
For the first time since I had known her, she had no final word.
Rebecca stayed.
So did Elliot.
The three of us sat at my dining table while the locksmith finished.
Then Elliot’s phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward Rebecca.
“My compliance team traced the entity that bought Trevor’s twenty-percent interest.”
Rebecca read the company name.
I had never heard it.
PACIFIC CREST ACQUISITIONS LLC.
“Who owns it?” I asked.
Elliot scrolled.
“A holding company.”
“Owned by?”
“Another LLC.”
Rebecca sighed.
“Of course.”
Elliot kept searching.
Then stopped.
“There’s a registered manager.”
He looked at Blake through the window.
Blake was standing beside his SUV, speaking on his phone.
“Who?” I asked.
Elliot said the name.
I did not understand at first.
Then Rebecca turned toward Patricia’s departing car.
May you like
The registered manager of the company that now owned Trevor’s share was:
PATRICIA CARRINGTON.
