Chapter 6

The police arrived just as I was walking out through the apartment complex's main gate.

A young officer stopped me. "Wait. Are you Emily Carter, the woman named in the report?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Someone reported that you brought people to force your way into a private home. We need you to come with us and make a statement."

"Breaking into a private residence?" I pulled the deed from my bag. "Officer, it's my apartment, and I have the deed. How does taking back my own property count as breaking into someone else's home?"

The officer examined the deed, then looked at me with a troubled expression.

"How about this. Come back to the station with us first, and we'll verify everything."

I got into the patrol car.

At the station, I waited in a mediation room with white walls, a long table, a few chairs, and a sign reading "Harmony Above All."

About twenty minutes later, a middle-aged officer entered with a folder, sat down across from me, and opened it.

An older officer asked, "Emily Carter? Owner of Unit 2202?"

"That's right," I replied.

"We checked your deed. It's real."

Relief washed over me. At least the police weren't like the neighbors, declaring my documents fake without even looking at them.

The officer continued, "But Sophie also provided a purchase contract. We suspect it may be forged, yet she claims she was deceived and is also a victim."

"She was tricked?" I repeated. "Tricked out of what exactly?"

"She says she didn't know the contract was fake. She thought she'd bought the apartment through proper channels. She also says that before she moved in, you told her the apartment was purchased on her behalf and you were just holding it in your name."

I stared at him. "She said I told her I was holding the apartment for her?"

"Yes. She says she paid you 100,000 dollars in cash as a down payment, so there is no transfer record."

I could hardly believe my ears.

She had not only forged a purchase contract but invented a cash transaction that made me part of the story. In her version, I was not a friend who lent her a home, but a scammer who took her money.

The story was clever because cash left no record. She said she paid; I said she had not. With no proof either way, it became her word against mine, and the person crying always had the advantage.

"Officer, she claims she gave me 100,000 dollars in cash. She earns about 2,000 dollars a month while raising a child. Where could she get that money?"

The officer flipped through the folder. "She says part of it came from the divorce settlement from her ex-husband, and part of it came from her parents."

"Her ex left without paying support. Her parents farm and earn under 17,000 dollars a year. What settlement or family money could she have received?"

The officer looked up at me, his eyes showing approval—or surprise—perhaps unused to such a calm complainant. "Ms. Carter, you're right, but Sophie is here with her child, distraught. Both cried outside for an hour. It was an ugly scene."

"So?"

"So our suggestion is this. Try mediation first. Let her move out as soon as possible, and you don't go back there again. Then follow legal procedure. However the court rules, that's what gets enforced."

"Fine. We can mediate," I said. "But I have one condition. She has to acknowledge that the apartment is mine."

The officer nodded and went out to get Sophie.

When Sophie entered, she wore a different expression.

She sat across from me, lowered her head, and said nothing.

The officer looked at us and said, "You have known each other for years. Why not talk this through instead of letting it become this ugly?"

Sophie looked up, and her eyes turned red again. "Emily, I'm sorry." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I shouldn't have let the neighbors say those things. I was just so scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Scared you'd throw me out." She bit her lip. "Max goes to preschool here. He has friends and likes it here. If we move, he'll be heartbroken."

"Sophie, the apartment is mine. I told you from the very start that I was lending it to you. So why did you change the locks? Why did you remodel it? Why did you register yourself as the owner with management?"

She did not answer my questions. She kept her head down as tears fell onto the table. "Emily, I know I was wrong. Just give me a little time. I'll move once I find a place, okay?"

I looked at the crown of her head. Her hair was slightly messy, with a few white strands half-hidden among the black.

She had aged.

Fourteen years had passed, and we had both aged. The teenager who once gave me a plum candy was now a mother, with white strands in her hair and fine lines around her eyes.

A voice inside me whispered, 'Let it go. Give her time. She was your friend for years, and raising a child alone is hard.'

'But had I forgotten her smile in the hall, her rumors, the extortion accusation, and how she taught Max to call me bad?'

The two voices battled inside my head until I could barely think.