Christopher had already lied to a bank.

He had already represented himself, in writing, as having authority over my building.

The loan machinery was already in motion, with a closing date already looming, and my signature was the one missing piece standing between him and either salvation or exposure as a fraud.

That is what made them dangerous in a way an ordinary greedy family is not.

A person trying to acquire something can be reasoned with, delayed, refused; the worst case is that they do not get the thing.

But a person trying to hide something they have already done has no floor beneath them, because the alternative to success is not merely disappointment — it is ruin, and prosecution, and shame.