I could only decide what happened after the silence.

That night, I put my phone on the nightstand where I could reach it, and for the first time in days, I slept without waiting for him to come home.

PART 8

By the third morning, the blue folder had become a collection of new questions rather than a promise of instant rescue.

Lauren and a real estate attorney named Peter Dunn reviewed the recorded deed, the title history, the questionable transfer draft, and the company’s loan correspondence.

They explained carefully what the documents did and did not establish.