So was the title insurance certificate.
So was my property insurance policy.
I emailed all three while he stayed on the phone.
“Got them,” he said.
“I can drive back.”
“That would be helpful.”
“I’m about forty minutes from Charlotte once I get moving.”
“We’ll be here.”
I returned to the kitchen.
My mother looked up.
“Everything okay?”
“I need to go handle something at one of my properties.”
Her fork stopped halfway toward her plate.
“One of your what?”
“Properties.”
My father looked at me.
I could already see the questions forming.
I didn’t answer them.
Not then.
I kissed my mother’s cheek and wished her happy birthday again.
“I’ll call tomorrow.”
Dileia still hadn’t arrived.
As I walked toward my car, my phone buzzed with another saved motion event from Caldwell Street.
I didn’t open it.
I drove.
When I reached Caldwell at 6:11, the scene waiting for me became the image I would remember more clearly than any argument that followed.
Two patrol vehicles.
Officer Reyes and his partner.
Dileia standing on the sidewalk.
The unfamiliar couple.
And my front door standing open behind them.
The couple introduced themselves as Greg and Sandra Holt.
They were in their mid-forties.
They looked mortified.
Greg kept both hands buried in his jacket pockets. Sandra held her phone against her coat.
“We didn’t know,” she said immediately.
“I know.”
She glanced toward Dileia.
“We found the listing Sunday.”
“What listing?”
Officer Reyes answered.
The upper unit of my duplex had been advertised online for $310,000.
For sale.
Not rent.
Sale.
The listing used photographs taken inside Unit B.
My floors.
My kitchen.
My windows.
My property.
It had been created and managed through Dileia’s real estate access.
The Holts had contacted her because they were interested.
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