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“Is this about Meg?” Scott asks.
I think about what I know. From Mrs. Nelson, overhearing Rosie’s accusation—You lied to me. And Meg’s own confession—We had to live in our car. “I don’t have anything more than a gut feeling, but too many pieces are overlapping with Ron Ashton to ignore. Right now, I’m thinking it might be some kind of real estate scam.”
He shoots me a warning look. “Careful what you tell me.”
“No, this is just broad strokes stuff. She hasn’t done anything, as far as I can tell. But let’s keep this off the record, just in case.”
“I’m not a reporter, Kat. There is no off the record with me. If a crime is going to be committed, I have to do something.”
I hold up my hands. “Right now, I’m in information-gathering mode. Looking at all possibilities.”
Scott nods and helps himself to a slice of pizza. “Real estate fraud could be a lot of things,” he says, taking a bite. “A signature forgery on a quitclaim deed to pull money out of a property.”
A quitclaim deed is how Ron got the property. It’s unlikely he would fall for something like that.
Scott continues, warming up to the topic. “Or sometimes people find abandoned properties, change the locks and try to sell them to unsuspecting victims. Most of the good scams require several people to pull off—property appraisers willing to appraise a property at a much higher value, loan officers willing to file false or inflated loan documents.”
I take a bite of pizza, thinking. I suppose it’s possible Meg has assembled a team, but she doesn’t strike me as a collaborator. She would need local people already in place, established in their chosen fields. And I don’t think she has them.
“But banks put in a lot of safety measures when they’re loaning money,” Scott says. “They require appraisals. Inspections. Proof of insurance.”
“How about in the context of all-cash deals?” I ask.
“Then the options open up significantly.”
“Why is that?”
Scott wipes his mouth with a napkin. “With an all-cash offer and a corrupt agent’s encouragement, the buyer can waive the contingency protections—like the inspection and appraisal—and get stuck with a property that could have major issues.”
“Why would an agent do that?” I ask.
“The buyer’s agent might be getting a kickback. Her commission, plus a percentage of the money the seller makes on the sale.” He chews, thinking. “Or maybe she uses a legitimate transaction to get his personal information. Social security number. Banking information. Most everything is done online, but a smart agent could find a way to get access.” Scott gestures at the last piece of pizza and I decline. He takes it and says, “If it were me, I’d try to find out where she’s been, what she’s been doing. Con artists pull the same scam over and over. It’s likely whatever she has planned is something she’s done before.”
***
After dinner, Scott turns on the TV, and I sit at my desk, flipping through my folder, rearranging the pages to give myself a new perspective. I stop when I find notes from my source at the Contractors State License Board. I’d called him after my interview with Mrs. Nelson, the neighbor who’d lived behind the Canyon Drive house. He’d described Ron as sketchy. “Or maybe more like predatory,” he’d said. “He used to find people in financial trouble, get them to refinance their homes under the guise of big renovations. When the money ran out, he’d disappear.”
“Used to?”
“He cleaned up his act about a year ago. No complaints since then.”
I doodle a starfish along the edge of the page, imagining Rosie, a young single mother with no family left, trusting a man like Ron and losing everything. What had that done to her? What had it done to her daughter?
For every story I write, I keep a legend—a quick glance at important facts, names, dates, and locations. Meg’s is a scramble of information going back ten years. I trace my finger across the names I gathered so long ago. Cory Dempsey. Cal Nevis. Clara Nelson.
Nate Burgess.
I stare at the name now, remembering his face, and the way his apartment smelled, until the letters blur and I have to look away. Remind myself that it’s been ten years, and I’m not that person anymore.
My therapist had been the one to suggest writing fiction as a tool in my recovery. “When you write a fictional account of something, you’re in control. You get to decide how it ends. I want you to write what happened to you that day, but I want you to change it so you have all the power.”
The first scene I wrote was short—me waiting in my car instead of the bar, watching Nate enter, and then driving away. The next one had me tossing my drink in Nate’s face. The one after that had me kneeing him in the groin and using his tie to yank him to the ground.
It was empowering, but it didn’t erase what had happened. It showed me that, like fiction, justice was an illusion for men like Nate.
But then I turned my attention to Meg and kept writing, giving her a backstory similar to the one I’d researched, wondering what her tipping point had been. The trigger that had sent her in the direction of Cory Dempsey, and then turning that into a career.
I gather my notes back into their folder and tuck it away. Long ago, when Scott moved in, we made the agreement that our workspace was sacrosanct. That neither of us would breach the other’s work documents unless invited. Even though I haven’t had a big story in over a year, I still put things away, on the off chance that Scott might see something unintentionally.
On the desk next to me, my phone buzzes with a text from Meg. It was nice getting to know you today. I do a yoga class every Wednesday morning in Santa Monica. Want to join? As I read the text, she sends a follow-up. This is me, trying to make a friend. She includes a laughing emoji to keep it light, but I feel a pulse of sympathy for her, which surprises me.
I’d love to, I type back. Then I add, This is me, trying to be a friend.
