Chapter 2 - The Spare Key
The catering employee couldn’t have been older than twenty-two.
His name was Mason.
He looked terrified.
“I didn’t know,” he kept saying. “She told me she owned the place.”
Sheriff Brooks held up the key.
“Who gave you this?”
Mason pointed directly at Mom.
Forty heads turned.
Margaret immediately shook hers.
“He’s lying.”
Mason’s face reddened.
“You gave it to my supervisor yesterday.”
“What supervisor?”
“Mr. Keene.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Apparently it meant something to Dad.
His eyes narrowed.
“Thomas Keene?”
Mom snapped:
“Robert, shut up.”
That was interesting.
Sheriff Brooks noticed too.
“Who is Thomas Keene?”
Dad hesitated.
“Our former property manager.”
Former?
I had never known my parents had a property manager.
Dad explained that Keene had managed several rental properties they owned years earlier.
Mom interrupted.
“This is irrelevant.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
Mason explained that Keene had contacted the catering company and personally coordinated access.
The plan was simple.
If the main gate remained locked, several employees would enter through an old service path behind the barn.
They would unlock the kitchen.
Then guests would be redirected through the rear of the property.
Exactly what Mom’s voicemail suggested.
Sheriff Brooks looked at her.
“You were explicitly notified yesterday that permission to enter had been revoked.”
“My daughter was emotional.”
“That doesn’t change ownership.”
“It’s a family property!”
“No,” I said.
I walked closer.
“It hasn’t been family property for seven years.”
Dad looked toward the guests.
Humiliation was finally reaching him.
“Emily, enough.”
“No.”
Mom stared at me.
Then she smiled.
It was the smile that had frightened me as a child.
“You think a piece of paper makes this yours?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps you should look at the right piece of paper.”
My stomach tightened.
“What are you talking about?”
Mom reached into her handbag.
Sheriff Brooks immediately stopped her.
“Slowly.”
She pulled out a folded document.
Dad looked confused.
She handed it through the gate.
I read the heading.
QUITCLAIM DEED.
My name appeared as grantor.
Robert and Margaret Carter appeared as grantees.
The document claimed I had transferred the farmhouse back to my parents eighteen months earlier.
There was even a signature.
Mine.
Except I had never signed it.
Dad looked at me.
“You told us Grandma’s property would eventually return to the family.”
“I never said that.”
Mom smiled.
“You signed it.”
“No.”
Her confidence returned.
“Then prove you didn’t.”
Sheriff Brooks took the document.
He examined the notarization.
His expression changed.
“Who notarized this?”
Mom’s smile faded slightly.
Dad leaned closer.
Then went pale.
The notary’s name was:
Thomas Keene.
The same man who had arranged the catering company’s secret entrance.
I looked at Mom.
“You forged my signature.”
She laughed.
“You’re upset. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Then my phone rang.
It was Samantha Vance, the attorney who handled my farmhouse purchase seven years earlier.
I had sent her copies of Mom’s messages the previous night.
I answered.
“Emily, do not let anyone onto the property.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
Her voice became sharper.
“Because I just checked the county records.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you find?”
“That deed your mother is holding?”
I looked at Mom.
Samantha continued:
“It was filed yesterday morning.”
Yesterday.
Not eighteen months ago.
May you like
And according to county records—
someone had already used it to secure a loan against my farmhouse.
