My phone began vibrating at 6:15 AM while I was pouring my first cup of coffee.

The man let out a blood-curdling roar, stumbling backward over the porch railing and crashing hard into the decorative boxwood shrubs below.

I didn't wait to see if he got back up. I bolted inside, threw the heavy deadbolt, and slammed the security alarm code into the wall pad, triggering the high-decibel perimeter lockdown.

Within minutes, sirens wailed in the distance. But I didn't call 9rip; I called Evelyn Vance.

“Evelyn,” I said, pacing my kitchen island while the security cameras outside flashed red and blue against the windows. “They found me.”

“Who found you?” Evelyn asked, her voice sharp with sudden professional alarm.

“One of my father’s underground creditors. He just tried to extort me on my own front porch using that forged surety bond.”

There was a brief pause on the line, the sound of keyboard clacking echoing through the receiver. “Camille, listen to me very carefully. If they have an original copy of that bond with a notarized stamp, we can't just claim forgery in civil court—we have to prove identity theft and criminal fraud at the state level. And to do that, we need to find the notary who certified your signature back in 2017.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“I’m looking at the stamp right now,” Evelyn said grimly. “A woman named Linda Geller. Operating out of a small title office in Clayton, North Carolina. And according to state records, her license was revoked two years ago for fraudulent loan padding.”

I looked out the kitchen window. The police cruiser lights were flashing in my driveway, officers shining their heavy flashlights into the bushes where the man had fled.

“ Clayton,” I whispered. “That’s thirty minutes south.”