PART 2
I held Eloise against my shoulder and laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“Mr. Brodeur,” I said, “my husband can’t sign over my house. It isn’t his.” Silence on the speaker.
“My grandmother left me that house when she died. Two years before I married Trace. It’s in my name. Only mine. Just like the car.”
The deputy took me off speaker. A minute later, he came back on.
“Ma’am, can you come down to the station? Bring any paperwork you have.”
I brought everything. The car loan. The title. The registration. The deed to my grandmother’s house, with my name and the date it was recorded.
Then the detectives started asking Sal Brodeur questions.
It turned out the “back room at a bar on the highway” was an illegal gambling operation. Sal ran it. He’d been taking cars, boats, and paychecks from men like Trace for two years. Men who signed things they had no right to sign because they were too drunk and too desperate to stop.
He’d never had anyone fight back with a phone app before.
Sal was charged with theft, running an illegal gambling business, and attempting to use fraudulent documents. My SUV came home that afternoon on a tow truck, with a full tank of gas.
Then the detectives looked at Trace.
He’d forged my name on the car title, making it look like I’d agreed to the transfer. He’d also tried to sign a quitclaim deed for my house. On a napkin. At 2 a.m.
Trace was charged with forgery and fraud.
When he came home that night, I’d already packed two suitcases for him and put them on the porch. My dad was sitting on the steps next to them.
“Jess, I was going to win it all back,” Trace said.
“You let a stranger drive away with our daughter in the back seat,” I said. “And then you told me not to call the police. Because you were the one in trouble.”
He didn’t have an answer.
I filed for divorce on Monday. The judge gave me full custody of Eloise. Trace sees her on Saturdays, supervised, until he finishes a gambling addiction program the court ordered.
He’s been going. I’ll give him that.
The man who sat in my driver’s seat that morning took a plea deal. Two years. The gambling room behind the bar was shut down. Eleven other families got their cars and boats back.
One of the wives found my number and called me.
“You’re the lady with the app,” she said. “My husband lost our truck there last spring. I thought it was gone forever. Thank you.”
Eloise is a year old now. She’s walking. She loves the car.
Every morning, before I buckle her in, I hold up my phone and let her press the button that starts the engine.
She thinks it’s magic.
I think it’s the reason we still have a car. And a house.
THE END.
