Then my signature.
Not mine, of course. That was the first clear thought I had. Before panic, before anger, before the house seemed to tilt behind him, I knew that signature was not mine. It was shaped like mine. It borrowed the upward slant I sometimes made when I signed too quickly. The M had a familiar flourish. The double s was pinched in the way my hand did when I was tired. It was close enough to make a stranger trust paper. Close enough to make a title company move money. Close enough to move my life into someone else’s name while I was asleep over the Pacific.
But it was not mine.
I stepped closer.
The man’s voice lowered. “The property transferred ten days ago. I closed through a title company. I was represented everything was valid.”
I heard him. I even understood him.
But my mind had gone to a different place entirely.
Only a few people had access to my signature often enough to imitate it with that kind of confidence. Only a few people had seen my mortgage documents, my insurance forms, my passport copies, my estate paperwork, the file cabinet where I kept the things that proved I existed inside systems.
Family, mostly.
That was the first crack of it.
