I brought up my personal checking balance on my phone and set it next to my paper ledger.

My total cash savings had been forty-two hundred dollars at the start of the week.

Taking out the twelve-hundred-dollar retainer left me with exactly three thousand dollars.

I looked at the utility bill, the water statement coming up and Bennett’s after-school care fee due on the fifteenth.

The numbers wouldn’t budge.

If Frank got the deed transfer through the county clerk’s office, a full quiet title lawsuit would cost thousands more than I had.

Without solid physical proof that my signature was forged, I couldn’t afford to fight him in court.