Chapter 8: What Came After
The charges were filed on a Thursday.
Daniel called Alison while she was at her mother's kitchen table helping Abigail with a school project about the water cycle.
She stepped into the hallway and closed the door most of the way.
"Document forgery," Daniel said.
"Fraudulent property transfer.
Two counts — your case and Patricia Holt's.
The DA's office is also reviewing a third case that came forward after the arrest was reported."
"A third woman?"
"A woman in Waukesha.
Two years ago.
She thought she had made a legal error.
She blamed herself." A pause.
"She stopped blaming herself yesterday."
Alison leaned against the wall.
"What about Schultz?"
"Cooperating fully with the DA in exchange for reduced charges.
He gave them everything — wire records, communications with Gregory going back eighteen months, the names of two other buyers he had lined up for future transactions."
"Eighteen months," Alison said.
"Gregory approached him four months before he approached me."
"He had identified you as a target before he introduced himself to you."
She stood with that for a moment.
"And the notary office?"
"The notary who processed the stamp has been suspended pending a licensing review.
She claims Gregory told her you were traveling and had authorized him to sign on your behalf.
She didn't verify.
She should have verified." Daniel's voice was careful.
"That's a separate proceeding."
"Renata?"
"No charges.
Her statement was voluntary and complete.
She cooperated fully." A beat.
"That's your call to make, not mine."
Alison looked through the gap in the kitchen door.
Abigail was drawing clouds above a diagram of a river, her tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth the way it always was when she was concentrating.
"I know," Alison said.
She thanked Daniel and hung up.
She stood in the hallway for another minute.
Then she went back into the kitchen and sat down next to her daughter.
"Mom," Abigail said, without looking up from her drawing.
"Is Gregory going to come back?"
"No," Alison said.
Abigail added another cloud.
"Good," she said simply, and kept drawing.
Three weeks later, Renata called.
Alison let it ring twice before she answered.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Renata said immediately.
"I just need you to know that I'm sorry.
Not because of what happened to me.
Because of what almost happened to Abigail."
Alison was quiet.
"She's the one who stopped it," Alison said finally.
"Not me.
Not Christopher.
Not Daniel.
She was eight years old and she was scared and she told me anyway."
"I know."
"I don't know what we are right now, Renata.
I don't know if we go back to what we were."
"I know," Renata said again.
"I'm not asking for that.
I just needed to say it out loud."
"Okay," Alison said.
"I heard you."
She ended the call and sat with the phone in her lap.
Patricia Holt called the following week.
The DA had confirmed that the proceeds from the fraudulent sale of her apartment — money that had been traced through Schultz's company — were being held pending restitution proceedings.
"I don't know if I'll ever see it," Patricia said.
"But I know his name is on a charging document now.
That's something I didn't have before."
"It's something," Alison agreed.
"You didn't have to include me in this.
You could have just protected yourself."
"You spent two years trying to find him," Alison said.
"The least I could do was let you be in the room when it mattered."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"Your daughter," she said.
"How is she?"
"She's good.
She's been sleeping through the night."
"Smart girl."
"She is," Alison said.
"She really is."
The title freeze on the downtown apartment was lifted six days after the arrest.
Alison went back to the apartment on a Saturday morning while Abigail was at her grandmother's.
She walked through each room slowly.
The kitchen.
The hallway.
Abigail's room, where Gregory had stood in the dark with a phone pressed to his ear.
She opened the closet door in Abigail's room and looked inside.
Coats.
Shoes.
A box of art supplies.
Nothing else.
She closed the door.
She went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee and stood at the window looking out at the street below.
The same street the bus had traveled down the evening Abigail had pressed herself against the seat and said the words that changed everything.
The coffee finished brewing.
She poured one cup.
She thought about pouring a second one out of habit, then didn't.
She sat down at the kitchen table alone, both hands around the warm cup, and looked at the door that led to her daughter's room.
It was just a door now.
That was enough.
---
*Sometimes the person who saves us is the one we were supposed to be protecting all along.
Abigail didn't know about deeds or forgery or property law — she only knew she was scared, and she told her mother the truth anyway.*
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