But he explained that she took him to a notary on his birthday and made him sign papers.
He popped the back of the watch and pulled out the folded paper.
I opened it.
It was a personal loan agreement for 85,000 dollars from a private lending company.
It lists Toby as the primary borrower, and me as the co-signer. It used Toby’s trust fund as collateral.
And at the bottom, my signature was printed in neat blue ink.
It looked exactly like my handwriting.
But I had never seen this paper in my life.
I stared at the signature. My fingers went cold.
Toby told me she said this was the only way to get his college money. He cried, saying the bank called him this morning because the loan was in default, and they were going to sue us and take my house.
I looked at the signature again. It was a forgery. A very good one.
But then my eyes fell on the notary stamp at the bottom of the page.
The notary was Arthur Vance.
I felt a small, hard smile touch my lips.
Because Misty and her lawyer had made a fatal mistake.
I had worked for 30 years as a county probate clerk. I knew every notary registration in Fort Wayne. And I knew Arthur Vance.
3 years ago, Arthur Vance had been caught stealing from an estate.
He had been disbarred, and his notary license had been revoked by the state of Indiana.
The stamp on the paper was dated for yesterday.
The loan was completely illegal. The notary stamp was a fraud. And the signature was a federal offense.
“Evelyn,” Toby whispered, his voice shaking. “Are they going to take your house?”
“No, Toby,” I said, my voice calm and steady. “They aren’t going to take anything.”
I called Fort Wayne Trust immediately. I asked for the compliance officer, a man I had known for 20 years.
I sent him a photo of the forged document and the revoked notary stamp. Within 2 hours, the bank’s legal department had flagged the loan as fraudulent and frozen the payouts.
The next day, Misty showed up at my house.
