Chapter 11 — THE MAN AT THE JOB SITE

Wes moved me to inside dispatch the same week, and it saved my job and probably my custody case and it cost me about eleven thousand dollars in overtime that year.

He never mentioned that.

What he did mention, in November, was that a man had come to the office asking about me.

Not Mercer.

A different man. Fifties, khakis, clipboard, said he was with an insurance adjuster doing a "vendor risk review" on Carolina Integrated Systems and needed to confirm employee credentials.

Wes has been doing this nineteen years.

He asked which carrier.

The man named a carrier.

Wes said great, I'll call your claims line and get a reference number, and the man said that wasn't necessary, and Wes said it absolutely is, and the man left.

Wes wrote down the plate.

"You want it?" he said, sliding a Post-it across his desk.

"Should I?"

"You'll do what you want with it. I'm telling you because a man came to my business and lied to my face about who he was, and that's my business, not just yours."

I gave the plate to Alma.

Alma gave it to an investigator she uses, a retired sheriff's detective named Bob Lindley who charges a hundred and forty an hour and is worth every dollar.

Three days later, Alma called.

"The vehicle's registered to a process serving company in Garner."

"So he was serving something?"

"No. Process servers don't do that. Process servers walk up and hand you paper and leave. They don't pretend to be insurance adjusters."

"Then what was he doing?"

"He was building a file on you." Alma's voice was very level. "Somebody's paying to find out what your work history looks like, whether you've got write-ups, whether you were where you said you were on July 18."

"July 18 is exactly where I said I was."

"I know. That's not the point." She paused. "The point is somebody spent money to check."

"Why does that matter?"

"Because it means they're planning to say you did sign it."

I sat with that.

"They're going to say I signed the deed of trust and now I'm pretending I didn't."

"That's the only defense available to them. If you didn't sign it, Judith committed a felony and Mercer's LLC is holding fraudulent paper. If you did sign it, it's a family disagreement about money and everybody goes home."

"And Corinne would have to say that under oath."

"Yes."

"She won't."

There was a pause on the line that went on slightly too long.

"Daniel," Alma said, "I need you to prepare for the possibility that she will."