My parents stood in the middle of Grandpa’s farm, told me they’d already sold the land to a developer, shoved “consent” papers at my chest, and sneered that I didn’t own a thing, but when I asked for the probate file number, my dad snapped, my mom smirked, and I drove straight to the county clerk instead

She scrolled through the log, her eyes moving left to right. Then she stopped.

Her lips parted slightly, and she looked up at me for a fraction of a second.

“It was opened yesterday,” she said softly.

“By who?”

She clicked once more, and a user line populated on the screen.

Not my father’s name.

My mother’s.

Gail Rowan

Timestamped yesterday morning.

Less than an hour before the estate transfer had been recorded.

My throat went cold.

“So she came here,” I said.

Mara nodded.

“She used the public kiosk under her own ID for a records request. That creates a trace.”

A trace.

The best kind of proof.

Mara straightened.

“I’m going to get my supervisor.”

I waited while she disappeared through a back door. My reflection hovered faintly in the glass partition above the counter, pale and still. I could feel my own breathing now, measured and a little too controlled, like I was holding the edges of myself together by force.

A minute later she returned with a man in a gray cardigan and a badge clipped to his belt.

His nameplate read Glenn Pritchard.

He had the look of a man who had spent thirty years letting other people panic while he continued alphabetizing facts.

“Ms. Rowan?” he asked.

“Yes.”