Chapter 4: Phase Two
Marcus picked up the phone before Savannah could reach it.
She grabbed for it.
"That's my phone—"
"Whose number is this?"
"Give it back—"
"Savannah." His voice dropped to something she hadn't heard from him before.
Flat.
Still.
"Whose number is this?"
She stopped reaching.
Her hand hovered in the air between them for a moment, then dropped to her side.
"It's nothing," she said.
"It's a vendor.
For the honeymoon arrangements."
"Transfer confirmed," Marcus read aloud.
"Phase two ready when you are." He looked up.
"What vendor sends a message like that?"
Savannah said nothing.
The manager stepped forward.
"Mr.
Whitmore, if I may — our security team flagged that number this morning.
It belongs to a private title company that has been involved in at least two other disputed property transactions in this state in the past eighteen months."
Evelyn set her purse down on the table and sat in the chair she had been told to leave.
Not dramatically.
Not as a statement.
She sat because her legs were tired and she was done standing for people who didn't deserve the effort.
"A title company," she said.
"What would a title company need to transfer?"
The manager opened the second folder again and removed a single sheet.
He placed it on the table in front of Evelyn.
She looked at it.
Then she looked at Savannah.
"This is a deed transfer request," she said.
"In my name.
With my signature."
"Yes," the manager said.
"I didn't sign this."
"No," he said.
"You didn't."
The room understood before Marcus did.
You could see it move across the faces of the guests nearest the table — the slow, dawning recognition of what they were actually witnessing.
This wasn't a wedding argument.
This wasn't a family dispute about seating arrangements and old keys.
This had been planned.
Constructed.
The wedding itself had been a mechanism.
Marcus set the phone down.
"They were going to use the wedding as cover.
File the transfer while everyone was here.
Make it look like a family ceremony, a natural handover—"
"The notarization was scheduled for this evening," the manager said.
"A mobile notary.
Booked three weeks ago."
"By whom?" Marcus asked.
The manager looked at Savannah's father.
Mr.
Aldridge had stopped trying to reach the exit.
He stood very still now, near the wall, with the particular stillness of a man who has run the numbers and doesn't like the total.
"I want my attorney present before I say anything further," he said.
"That is your right," the manager said.
"The sheriff's deputy will be here in approximately twelve minutes.
You're welcome to wait."
Savannah turned to Marcus.
The panic had reorganized itself into something that looked almost like strategy.
Her voice softened.
Her eyes changed.
"Marcus.
Listen to me.
I love you.
Whatever my father did — I didn't know all of it.
I knew we needed money.
I knew the property was going to be ours.
I didn't know about the notary.
I didn't know about the title company.
You have to believe me."
Marcus looked at her for a long time.
"The message on your phone said phase two," he said.
"What was phase one?"
Savannah's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
"Phase one was the loan application," Evelyn said from her chair.
Her voice was calm and precise, the voice of a woman who had been thinking clearly while everyone else had been reacting.
"They needed to establish the property's value on paper.
The loan application created a formal record of the asset.
Phase two was the transfer — moving the deed while the family was gathered and distracted and the event made everything look voluntary."
She looked at Savannah.
"You needed me here," Evelyn said.
"You needed me present at this resort today so that my presence could be used to suggest I'd participated willingly.
That's why you wanted me to come.
Not to celebrate.
To be a witness to my own loss."
Savannah's face did something complicated.
"That's not—" she started.
"Don't," Evelyn said.
Just that one word.
Quiet as a door closing.
Marcus sat down heavily in the chair beside his grandmother.
He didn't speak.
He put his elbows on the table and pressed his hands over his face, and for a moment he looked exactly like the four-year-old boy Evelyn had brought home from the hospital after the accident that took his parents.
Lost.
Overwhelmed.
Needing someone to tell him what was real.
Evelyn put her hand over his.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't need to.
Across the room, one of the wedding guests — an older woman in a blue dress who had been sitting silently near the window for the past ten minutes — stood up and walked toward the table.
She stopped a few feet away and looked directly at the manager.
"I need to tell you something," she said.
"I saw the notary arrive.
An hour ago.
May you like
He came in through the side entrance near the garden.
He's still here."
