“Yes,” you say to all three.
“Good,” she replies. “Do not warn them. Meet me at the county clerk’s office in an hour.”
While Noah builds a block tower on your living room rug and Delilah folds and refolds the same dish towel in your kitchen, you dig through your home file cabinet for the property documents. The original purchase papers are exactly where you left them, inside a manila folder labeled in thick black marker with the house address and the year you bought it. You slide in tax receipts, insurance renewals, and every related document you can find, then add printed screenshots of Evan’s messages. By the time you leave for the county office, the folder is heavy enough to feel like a weapon.
Marlene meets you in the records room wearing a navy blazer and the expression of a woman who already suspects she is about to be offended by other people’s audacity. She pulls the deed history, scans it once, then twice, then angles the page toward herself again without speaking. “Well,” she says at last, and her voice goes flat in a way you have learned to respect. “That’s interesting.”
Your stomach tightens. “Interesting how?”
