Chapter 2 - My Signature Was on Her Eviction
I was in the car before Thomas finished calling the property manager.
"Do not tell them I'm coming."
"Vincent."
"Not one word."
Chicago traffic crawled under freezing rain.
I watched the address on my phone get closer by blocks.
Thomas sat beside me with the property file open across his knees.
"The eviction was entered this morning."
"By who?"
"North Harbor management portal."
"User?"
"Regional property administrator."
"Name."
"Karen Bell."
"Call her after we arrive."
"Already tried. Voicemail."
I looked at him.
"Convenient."
The building came into view.
Brick stained dark by winter.
Rust around the fire escape.
Two windows covered with plastic from the inside.
A man stood near the entrance smoking beneath a NO SMOKING sign.
I had signed documents claiming this property had undergone a two-million-dollar rehabilitation.
It looked tired enough to collapse from embarrassment.
Hannah waited in the lobby with Eli and Ben.
The boys each had a backpack.
Packed.
That hit harder than the eviction notice.
She had believed she might have to leave immediately.
"You didn't need to bring them down."
She looked at me.
Not angry.
Worse.
Suspicious.
"I didn't know what was going to happen."
Fair.
I took the notice from her hand.
Unauthorized occupants.
The boys were listed as unauthorized despite lease paperwork showing dependent minors.
Suspected theft from employer.
No police report.
No evidence attached.
Then my name.
Executive owner approval:
VINCENT MORETTI.
I wanted to rip the page.
I folded it instead.
"This is frozen."
Hannah stared.
"Can you do that?"
"Apparently I own the building."
Her face changed.
"What?"
"I didn't know until today."
She laughed once.
No humor.
"You own my building and didn't know?"
"Through a company."
"That is not better."
"No."
She seemed surprised I agreed.
Good.
I was done defending things that did not deserve defense.
The elevator opened.
A maintenance man stepped out carrying a space heater.
I stopped him.
"What unit?"
He looked at my coat.
My shoes.
Then Thomas.
"Twenty-seven."
Hannah's face tightened.
"That's Mrs. Alvarez."
I looked at the heater.
"Why?"
The maintenance man shrugged.
"Radiator's dead."
"How long?"
"Few weeks."
Thomas opened the capital-improvement report.
New central heat system installed eleven months ago.
I showed him.
"Does this building have a new heating system?"
He read.
Then laughed.
"No."
My jaw tightened.
"Who signs your work orders?"
"Keller Property Services."
Thomas and I looked at each other.
Adrian Keller.
Same last name.
Could be coincidence.
I had stopped trusting coincidence an hour ago.
We went to Hannah's apartment.
Two bedrooms.
Clean.
Small.
Cold.
A portable heater sat between the boys' beds.
Ben had drawn a sun on yellow paper and taped it above the heater.
I stared at it.
"Makes it warmer," he said.
My chest tightened.
I crouched.
"Good trick."
He smiled.
Hannah watched me.
I stood.
"Show me the furnace."
She led me to a utility closet near the kitchen.
Old unit.
Manufacturer date fifteen years earlier.
Maintenance sticker:
KELLER PROPERTY SERVICES.
Thomas photographed everything.
My phone vibrated.
Adrian.
I let it ring.
Then again.
Thomas looked at me.
"He knows."
"Maybe."
"You hate that word."
"Today I do."
A hard knock hit the apartment door.
Hannah flinched.
I opened it.
A woman with a city badge stood outside.
Housing inspection.
Behind her, a uniformed utility representative.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Vincent Moretti."
Her expression changed.
Not recognition from television.
Something harder.
"Good."
She stepped inside.
"Then maybe you can explain why this building is occupied."
I stared.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
She pulled a tablet from her bag.
"We ordered gas service restricted last winter after repeated boiler failures and carbon-monoxide complaints."
Hannah went pale.
"No one told us."
The inspector looked at her.
"Management appealed."
I asked:
"Who signed the appeal?"
She tapped.
Turned the screen.
My digital signature.
Again.
I felt heat rise under my collar.
"I did not sign that."
The inspector's expression did not move.
"The city verified the certificate."
Thomas asked:
"Can we get the authentication record?"
"With counsel."
I took out my phone and called Moretti legal.
"Preserve every real-estate authorization tied to North Harbor. Six years."
"No deletions. No notices to management."
My general counsel paused.
"Vincent, what's happening?"
"I don't know yet."
Adrian called again.
This time I answered.
"Where are you?" he asked.
No hello.
I looked at the broken furnace.
"Why?"
"I'm seeing unusual data pulls from the real-estate servers."
Fast.
Too fast.
"You monitor my legal team's searches?"
"We monitor system security."
"Do you own Keller Property Services?"
Silence.
Then a laugh.
"No."
"Related to you?"
"My cousin started it years ago. I disclosed that."
I did not remember any disclosure.
Maybe buried in a conflict form.
Maybe I signed that too.
"We need to talk."
"We do."
"Tomorrow."
"Tonight."
I ended the call.
Thomas had opened the building management portal on his tablet.
He stared at the screen.
"Vincent."
"What?"
"This isn't one building."
He rotated the tablet.
North Harbor Residential portfolio.
Property count:
43.
I stopped breathing.
"Forty-three?"
"Across Cook County and the south suburbs."
"Total rehab allocation?"
He scrolled.
My stomach dropped.
Millions.
Then I saw the approval column.
Every property.
Every budget.
Every inspection override.
Signed under my authority.
At the bottom of Hannah's eviction notice, a certificate ID appeared.
Thomas copied it into the authorization audit.
User credential:
VK-EXEC-DELEGATE.
Owner:
Adrian Keller.
I stared.
"He can sign as me."
Thomas nodded.
"Under delegated authority."
"How much authority?"
He swallowed.
"Enough to have put your name on every one of these."
Before we left Hannah's apartment, I photographed every repair invoice tied to her unit.
Thirty-four thousand for a furnace that did not exist.
Nine thousand for window replacement that never happened.
Six thousand for mold remediation.
Hannah pointed toward the bathroom ceiling.
A dark stain spread above the shower.
"That came back three weeks after they painted over it."
I looked at the invoice.
MOLD REMEDIATION COMPLETE - $6,840.
I felt sick.
Ben appeared in the doorway holding an inhaler.
"Does mold make asthma worse?" he asked.
Hannah went still.
I crouched.
"It can."
He nodded like he had just solved a math problem nobody else wanted to touch.
That invoice stopped being accounting.
May you like
It became a child's lungs.
CUT.
