I called Harrison again before I went to bed. This time, I didn't wait for him to ask questions.
"Julian may have tried to borrow against the house before arranging the sale."
He was silent for a moment.
"Do you have anything in writing?"
"Not yet. Khloe says she thinks he submitted an application."
"Then we'll treat it as an allegation until we have the documents. Don't contact any lenders yourself. Send me the name of the assessment company if you can find it."
I promised I would.
After we hung up, I returned to the study. The house was quiet except for the refrigerator humming downstairs. I turned on the desk lamp and began going through the folders again, this time looking for anything related to the property's value, title, or financing.
The cabinet contained years of paperwork. Some folders were mine, others belonged to Mom, and several had been added after Khloe and Julian moved in. A thick envelope marked HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES held utility bills and repair estimates. Another contained insurance documents.
At the back of the lowest drawer, I found a brown folder with no label.
Inside were photographs of the house, printed property listings, and a handwritten list of improvements. The photographs had been taken from several angles, including the upstairs bedroom, the garden, and the narrow room beside the garage where Mom had slept.
Someone had measured the kitchen counters and noted the dimensions of the living room. On one page, the estimated value of the property was written in bold blue ink.
$645,000.
Below that figure were three possible loan amounts.
The largest was $400,000.
I sat back in the chair. My hands had gone cold.
The assessment payment I'd found earlier suddenly made sense. Julian hadn't merely been collecting information for a sale. He had been evaluating how much money he could extract from the house.
I photographed every page and sent the images to Harrison.
Then I noticed a sheet tucked beneath the photographs. It was a lender's preliminary questionnaire. The property address was correct. My name appeared as the owner, and the box marked applicant had been completed with my personal information.
The employment section listed my overseas employer, although the salary figure was substantially higher than my actual income.
At the bottom, someone had written a note.
Owner currently abroad. Local family representative available.
I read it several times.
The questionnaire wasn't proof that a loan had been approved, but it demonstrated that someone had used my information to explore financing options without my consent.
I called Harrison once more.
"I found the questionnaire."
"Send it to me. All of it."
I did.
He asked whether I recognized the handwriting. I compared it with the notes I'd found in Khloe's folder. The lettering was different. The numbers were written with a firm, narrow hand that looked much like Julian's.
"I think he filled it out," I said.
"Possibly. We'll have a document examiner review it if necessary."
I heard papers moving on his desk.
"Natalie, there's another issue. If an application was submitted, we need to make sure no lien or other claim has been recorded against the property."
My stomach tightened.
"Can that happen without my signature?"
"Fraudulent documents can be submitted. Whether they were accepted is another question."
He recommended an immediate title search and a formal fraud alert with the relevant institutions. He also asked me to locate the original purchase documents.
I found the deed in a locked drawer beneath the desk. My signature was clear and familiar, the same one I'd used on countless employment forms and bank documents. Beside it was the closing statement from six years earlier.
Mom had kept the paperwork in excellent condition. Every page was aligned, every receipt clipped to its corresponding section.
I ran my fingers over the cover.
She had been proud of this house. Even after her living arrangements had deteriorated, she'd apparently continued preserving the documents that proved it belonged to me.
The next morning, I took the original folder to Harrison's office.
He had already arranged for a title search. Elise was reviewing the evidence with an investigator assigned to the fraud complaint. Rebecca and Adam had submitted their own records, including messages Julian had sent about the proposed purchase.
Harrison spread the loan questionnaire across his desk.
"This is important," he said. "But we need to establish whether it went anywhere."
He called the lender's fraud department while I sat beside the window. After confirming my identity through a separate verification process, he explained that I had discovered an unauthorized inquiry involving my property.
The representative asked for the date of the assessment. Harrison provided it. She searched the records and placed us on hold.
When she returned, her tone had changed.
The lender had received an application for a secured loan eleven months earlier. It had been marked incomplete because the ownership documentation couldn't be verified. A second inquiry had been made several months later through a different intermediary.
Neither had resulted in a loan.
I exhaled slowly.
"Did anyone use my name?"
"Yes," Harrison said. "The representative confirms that the applications identified you as the owner and borrower."
"Was my signature attached?"
"One application included a scanned signature page."
I closed my eyes.
The representative agreed to send the relevant documents to Harrison through a secure channel. She also confirmed that the lender had placed a permanent fraud alert on the file while the investigation proceeded.
When the call ended, I stared at the desk.
For months, perhaps longer, Julian had been testing different ways to turn my property into money. The failed loan applications had apparently taught him that a direct sale might be easier.
And Khloe had helped him.
Harrison leaned back in his chair.
"Do you want to hear the other development?"
I looked at him.
"The title search is clear. There is no recorded lien, mortgage, or transfer. Legally, the property remains in your name."
Relief came so quickly that I had to grip the chair.
"Thank goodness."
"That doesn't resolve the identity fraud or the financial claims, but it protects us from one immediate concern."
He then showed me an email from the assessment company. The firm had been contacted by Julian through an online form. The request described him as a family representative acting on behalf of an overseas owner who needed a valuation for an urgent financial transaction.
A copy of my passport had been attached.
I recognized the document. It was the scan I'd sent Khloe for the supposed cruise.
I felt sick.
Harrison printed the email and placed it in the evidence folder.
"Your sister needs to explain how this document was used."
I called Khloe from the corridor.
She answered almost immediately.
"Did you find something?"
"Yes. Your husband used my passport to apply for loans against the house."
She started crying.
"I didn't know he actually submitted them."
"Did you give him the passport?"
She was silent.
"Khloe."
"Yes."
I leaned against the wall.
"Why?"
"He said he needed it to get the assessment done."
"Did you ask what he was planning?"
"He told me the house was worth enough to help us get out of debt."
"And you thought that was acceptable?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly to reassure me.
I asked whether she had access to the email account used for the applications. She said Julian handled most of the financial paperwork but admitted that she'd forwarded him several of my documents over the previous year.
"Which documents?"
"My passport. A copy of your employment contract. Some insurance papers."
I gripped the phone harder.
"Why did you have my employment contract?"
"You sent it when I asked about the cruise."
I remembered the exchange. Khloe had claimed the travel company needed proof that the trip was a gift funded by a family member. I'd sent the contract without thinking twice.
She had kept it.
I asked her to provide a complete list of everything she'd shared with Julian. She promised to do so.
When I returned to the office, Harrison was speaking with Elise. They had discovered another transfer connected to the household allowance.
This one was different.
It was a payment of $6,200 to a private debt collection service.
The account holder was Julian.
I stared at the statement.
"Mom's money paid his debt."
Harrison nodded.
"That's what the preliminary records suggest."
I sat down heavily.
The number wasn't enormous compared with the value of the house, but its meaning was devastating. The money I'd sent for medication, groceries, and personal comfort had been used to protect the man who was making my mother scrub the patio.
For a while, I couldn't speak.
Then Harrison asked whether Mom had ever given Julian permission to use her funds.
"No."
"Has she ever authorized him to manage her accounts?"
"Not formally."
"Then we'll document that distinction."
I thought of the bank cards in Khloe's handbag, the phone in Julian's pocket, and the little room beside the garage. Every detail now seemed connected to a larger pattern.
By the time I returned home, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. She had placed a vase of flowers beside the window. The arrangement was uneven, with two stems leaning toward the light.
She looked up when I entered.
"You're home early."
I sat across from her.
"Mom, I found something about the money."
Her expression tightened.
"How much?"
"Some of it was used to pay Julian's debts."
She stared at the cup.
For several seconds, she didn't move.
Then she asked, "Was he in trouble?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't he tell us?"
I felt an ache behind my eyes.
"Because he didn't want us to know what he was doing."
Mom slowly set down her spoon.
"I thought I was helping."
"You were never asked to help. He took money that was meant for you."
She looked toward the garden. A small bird landed on the fence, pecked at something near the flowerbed, and flew away.
"Khloe must have known," she said.
I didn't answer.
She nodded as though she'd already understood.
That afternoon, we visited her bank. Harrison had arranged an appointment so Mom could regain complete control of her accounts and review the recent transactions. The bank issued new cards, reset her access credentials, and removed the supplementary arrangements that had allowed other people to use her funds.
Mom signed each form slowly. Her hand shook slightly, but she refused my offer to complete the paperwork for her.
When the clerk asked whether she wanted a trusted person to receive account alerts, Mom looked at me.
"Can I choose myself?"
"Of course," the clerk replied.
Mom smiled.
"Then I'll do that."
It was such a small decision, but she seemed visibly lighter afterward.
On the drive home, she watched the passing shops through the window. Then she spoke.
"I want to know how much they took."
"We'll find out."
"And I want it written down."
I glanced at her.
"All of it?"
"Every dollar."
Her voice was calm, but the determination beneath it was unmistakable.
For the first time since my return, my mother wasn't asking me to keep the peace.
She was asking for the truth.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: My Mother Asked for Every Dollar Back, but the Account Records Revealed a Second Financial Arrangement Neither of Us Had Expected
The Unexpected Return That Revealed How Completely My Mother Had Lost Her Place in the Home I Bought for Her
Part 6 of 20
