The property issue began to resolve after the lender's investigators completed their examination of the disputed documents. They found inconsistencies in the authorization records and obtained confirmation from the named notary that she had not performed the transaction described in the packet. My work records and other evidence also contradicted the document's account of where I had been when it was supposedly signed. The bank agreed that the questionable instrument should not be enforced against my property, and Camila pursued the formal steps necessary to clear the public title record.
It was not as satisfying as watching a villain receive a sentence in a courtroom. There was no dramatic announcement or burst of applause when the corrected paperwork was accepted. A clerk stamped the relevant documents, a title examiner updated the file, and Camila sent me a copy of the confirmation. Yet when I read that the Bennett land no longer carried the disputed encumbrance, I sat at my kitchen table with the paper pressed against my chest and cried harder than I had at the airport.
I drove straight to my mother's house. She was replacing a loose handle on the back door, standing on the porch with a screwdriver in her hand. When I told her the title issue had been resolved, she closed her eyes briefly and leaned against the doorframe. Then she walked down the steps and hugged me.
"Your dad would be proud of you," she said.
"I wish he were here."
"So do I. But he taught you how to do this without him. He always said the point of teaching someone was to make sure they could carry on when you weren't there to show them the next step."
I looked toward the workshop. The blue doors had been repainted by a neighbor who refused payment beyond a lunch of sandwiches and lemonade. The building looked almost exactly as it had when my father was alive. It was still just a workshop, a place for tools and spare parts. Yet to me it had become proof that certain things could be protected even after somebody powerful decided they were available for taking.
The same week, Ashley's attorney contacted Camila and asked whether I would consent to receiving a written statement from Ashley about the business documents and Ryan's representations. I agreed, with the understanding that any relevant evidence should also go to the investigators. I did not want to meet Ashley privately in a restaurant and reconstruct our marriage over coffee. I wanted a clear record of what she knew, when she knew it, and how Ryan had used her company.
Her statement was eighteen pages long. It included dates of their first meetings, copies of messages in which Ryan claimed he had separated from me, and a screenshot of a supposed divorce document he had shown her six months earlier. A check of the relevant court records revealed no such decree. She also described the proposed resort project, her design work, the eighteen-thousand-dollar retainer, and the seventy-five thousand dollars she had invested from her own savings after Ryan promised her an ownership interest in the development.