Part 4
Leah turned the laptop toward the light and photographed the deed beside Marian’s driver’s license signature.
“Who had access to your identification while you were in rehabilitation?” she asked.
“Evan. He brought my mail and paid the household bills.”
“Did you ever authorize him to sell property?”
“No.”
“Could the power of attorney have included that authority?”
Marian looked away. “I don’t know. I signed what the hospital social worker put in front of me.”
The embarrassment in her voice bothered Nolan more than the admission.
“Most people don’t read legal documents while they’re learning to walk again,” he said.
Leah nodded. “And giving someone authority to pay bills does not automatically mean they can transfer your land to their employer. We need the original document.”
Over the next two days, Leah traced seven nearby property transfers involving older owners. Three had been notarized by the same woman, an office manager who had worked for Evan’s failed contracting company. Two parcels were later assigned to Granite Harbor subsidiaries.
The pattern was suspicious, but suspicion was not proof.
Marian requested records from the rehabilitation center. Nolan drove her to the sheriff’s office, where she filed a formal complaint concerning the dogs, the forged deed, and the use of her power of attorney.
She nearly turned back at the front steps.
Sadie, riding in the rear seat, rested her muzzle on Marian’s shoulder until she opened the door.
The pressure came the following morning.
A county animal-control officer arrived at Nolan’s cabin in response to an anonymous report alleging that he was keeping malnourished dogs without adequate shelter. Nolan let her inspect every room.
She found warmed bedding, feeding records, medication labeled by Dr. Park, and three puppies who had each gained weight. Sadie’s neck injury had begun to close.
The officer’s name was Dana Walsh. She had handled enough retaliatory complaints to recognize one.
“The caller submitted photographs,” she said. “Your truck. The dog in the yard. Mrs. Bell entering the house.”
“Taken from where?”
Dana showed him the images on her tablet. The angle came from the tree line east of the cabin.
Nolan studied the shadows and the visible edge of his porch. “Someone stood inside the woods.”
“Do you have a security camera?”
“Not yet.”
“You should.”
After Dana left, Nolan walked the boundary with Sadie. Fresh snow covered most tracks, but the dog repeatedly returned to a spruce tree approximately forty yards from the front door.
She sniffed the trunk and looked up.
A compact trail camera had been strapped twelve feet above the ground and angled toward the cabin. It was small enough to disappear among the branches, with a cellular antenna tucked behind the housing.
Nolan did not touch it.
He photographed the tree, marked the location on his phone, and called the sheriff’s office. A deputy arrived an hour later with an evidence bag and a ladder.
The camera stood on Marian’s side of the surveyed property line.
“Could be a hunter who forgot it,” the deputy said, though his tone suggested he did not believe that.
He opened the housing while wearing gloves. Beneath the battery compartment, someone had written a phone number in permanent marker.
Marian recognized it before Nolan did.
“That was Evan’s business line.”
The deputy turned the camera over.
A weathered inventory label remained stuck to the back.
PROPERTY OF BELL LAND SERVICES.
The camera’s transmission light was still blinking…
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