“Which property?”
“Everything.”
“But start with Galena.”
The farmhouse outside Galena had been mine before Mercer.
Twelve acres.
White clapboard.
Maple trees along the gravel lane.
I bought it after my first major institutional contract because I wanted somewhere that was not Chicago.
No towers.
No client lunches.
No valuation models.
Just old floors, birds, and a kitchen large enough to host people I loved.
Two years into our marriage, I added Mercer to the title.
I still remembered the signing.
We had been sitting on the farmhouse porch afterward drinking cheap wine.
He touched my hand and said:
“Now it’s really ours.”
I had believed the gesture was romantic.
I had no idea that years later I would study the same deed as evidence.
The farmhouse appeared in our divorce disclosure at an agreed value of $810,000.
Its equity had been incorporated into the settlement calculations.
My ownership interest was protected under the signed agreement.
Or so we thought.
Priscilla called back forty-six minutes later.
Her voice had changed.
“Sit down.”
I was already sitting.
“Title changed ninety-one days before you filed.”
I put down my pen.
“To whom?”
“A holding company.”
“What holding company?”
“North Star 417 LLC.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“I know.”
“Members?”
“One.”
“Callum Gray.”
Mercer’s older brother.
Cardiologist.
Respected.
Steady.
The person everyone in that family described as the responsible one.
I stood and walked into my kitchen.
“Send me the documents.”
“They’re coming now.”
My laptop chimed.
I opened the file.
WARRANTY DEED.
Grantors:
Vivian Mercer.
Mercer Gray.
Grantee:
North Star 417 LLC.
There was my name.
There was Mercer’s.
There were signatures.
His looked correct.
Mine did not.
Not obviously wrong.
Whoever had produced it understood my signature well.
The first V sloped correctly.
The final line of my last name lifted upward.
But a signature is muscle memory.
I had signed thousands of reports.
The imitation was built from appearance.
Mine came from movement.
I knew immediately.
“That isn’t mine.”
I said.
Priscilla replied:
“I assumed you’d say that.”
I opened my firm’s secure signature history.
Every certified report I signed digitally generated an authentication record.
Device.
Time.
Certificate.
Document hash.