Chapter 81: Vivian Is Getting Desperate
Makima’s expression hardened slightly, the warmth of the evening replaced by something more focused. "They’re getting desperate," she said.
"Or they’re getting confident," said Sean. "Desperate people are sloppy. This wasn’t sloppy. This was careful and fast and they got out before anyone arrived."
"Which is worse," said Makima.
"Confident," said Sean. "Desperate people make mistakes you can use. Confident people just keep coming."
Makima looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached over and took his hand again, the same gesture from dinner, except now it felt less like comfort and more like solidarity.
"What do we do," she said.
Sean thought about Elena’s preliminary findings, still a day away. About Vivian’s card sitting in his jacket pocket. About a phone call he’d told Max he’d make in two days, a deadline that had just compressed itself without his permission.
"I think it’s time to speed up the plan," Sean said.
He pulled out his phone and texted Max.
Patricia’s house was broken into tonight. They didn’t find her, she’s safe, but they were searching specifically for documents. This is moving faster than I planned.
Max’s response came within a minute.
I was about to call you anyway. Elena’s title search hit something. She wanted to talk tonight, not tomorrow.
Sean felt his pulse pick up. What did she find.
She wouldn’t say over text, Max replied. She said it needed to be in person. Tonight if possible.
Sean looked at Makima. The flowers sat in their vase on the kitchen counter behind her, the candles still burning low between them, the whole evening they’d just had sitting suddenly at the edge of something that wouldn’t wait for morning.
"I have to go," he said quietly.
Makima nodded, already understanding before he finished the sentence. "Go," she said. "I’ll be here."
He stood, kissed her once more, briefer this time, and headed for the door.
"Sean," she said, just as he reached it.
He turned.
"Be careful," she said. The same two words. Always the same two words, said by everyone who’d started to matter to him in this life.
"I will," he said.
He stepped out into the hallway and pulled out his phone, calling James as he went down the stairs.
"Elena Voss’s office," he said. "Now."
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The drive to Elena Voss’s office took eleven minutes that felt considerably longer.
James didn’t ask questions, just drove with the particular efficient calm of someone who’d absorbed Sean’s urgency the second he’d gotten in the car. Sean spent the ride texting Max, trying to piece together the shape of what was happening before he actually had the full picture in front of him.
Anything else on the break-in, he typed.
Walsh’s man says it was quick and clean, Max replied. In and out in under fifteen minutes. Whoever did it knew exactly what kind of search pattern to use, which is not amateur behavior.
Could it be the same people from outside my building. Foster’s crew.
Possibly, said Max. Or a different team entirely. Vivian has resources. No reason to assume one operation handles everything.
Sean looked out the window at the city sliding past in the dark.
Elena found something in the title search, he typed. Wouldn’t say what over text. Heading there now.
Want me on the call when you’re done, Max asked.
Yeah. I’ll call you after.
He put the phone away and looked at the lit windows of office buildings passing by, most of them dark this late, a few still glowing with the particular tired light of people working past when they should have gone home.
Elena’s building had one light on, fourth floor, exactly where her office was.
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Elena’s Office
She buzzed him up without making him wait in the lobby, and when he stepped off the elevator she was standing in her doorway already, glasses pushed up into her hair, sleeves rolled to her elbows, the careful composure from their afternoon meeting replaced by something more focused and considerably more alert.
"Thank you for coming this late," she said, stepping back to let him in.
"You said it couldn’t wait," said Sean.
"It couldn’t," said Elena. She led him to her desk, which was now covered in printouts that hadn’t been there earlier that day, the organized chaos of someone who’d spent the last several hours building a case in real time. "Sit down."
Sean sat.
Elena pulled a single document from the pile and set it in front of him. "I want you to read the case caption first. Just that. Before I explain anything."
Sean looked at it.
A court filing. County civil division. The case caption read, in the dense, deliberately impersonal language of legal documents: Brightline Acquisitions LLC, Petitioner, v. Unknown Heirs and Assigns of Dorothy Whitfield Moyer, and All Other Persons Claiming Any Right, Title, or Interest in the Property Described Herein, Respondents.
Sean felt something cold settle in his chest. "Dorothy Whitfield Moyer."
"Patricia’s grandmother," said Elena. "The seller in the original 1964 transaction."
"What is this," said Sean, though he was already starting to understand the shape of it.
"It’s called a quiet title action," said Elena. She sat down across from him, pulling her glasses back down onto her nose. "It’s a legal mechanism used to resolve uncertainty or competing claims around ownership of a piece of property. Petitioner asks the court to declare, formally, that they hold clean title, free of any other claims, liens, or interests that might complicate a future sale or development."
"Including old conditional clauses," said Sean.
"Including old conditional clauses," Elena confirmed. "If Brightline Acquisitions can get a court to rule that the right of first refusal in Dorothy Moyer’s original sale agreement is invalid, unenforceable, or simply doesn’t exist as far as the court record is concerned, then the land is clean. Marketable. Sellable to anyone, without the Moyer family ever having a say in it."
Sean stared at the document. "When was this filed."
"Three weeks ago," said Elena.
