She stole my daughter’s birthday present! Stop that girl right now!
The next afternoon, the Pine Creek Diner buzzed with its usual lunchtime crowd. I sat alone at a booth, nursing a cold coffee, trying to figure out my next move. Without the garage, without my house, my options were shrinking fast. Emma deserved better than to watch me lose everything.
A woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and a notepad tucked under her arm approached my table. She was dressed in professional, but not flashy, clothes—more practical than Barksdale’s suits. I recognized her from a few local newspaper photos. Nia Gaines. She worked for the County Chronicle.
“Marcus Hollis?” she asked, her voice clear and direct.
I nodded, surprised. “That’s me.”
“Nia Gaines,” she said, extending a hand across the table. Her grip was firm. “I’m a reporter. I’ve been following your situation.”
My guard went up. “My situation? Are you here to write another story about the ex-con dad and his ‘thieving’ daughter?”
She shook her head, a flicker of something in her eyes, not pity, but professional interest. “No. I’m investigating Jerome Barksdale.”
My head snapped up. “Barksdale?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, sliding into the booth opposite me. “I’m working on a series about suspicious land transfers in the county. Specifically, how elderly Black homeowners are losing their properties through questionable tax auctions and deed transfers.”
She opened her notepad. “I noticed Barksdale’s name on eight recent property foreclosures. All involving people in their seventies or eighties, people who wouldn’t necessarily question a legal document placed in front of them.”
A cold dread settled in my gut. Eight other families? Not just my mother.
“What do you mean, questionable?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“The patterns are too neat,” Nia explained, tapping her pen against the page. “Barksdale is always the notary. The properties are always transferred for suspiciously low amounts, or sometimes, as in your mother’s case, seemingly for no monetary exchange at all.”
She leaned forward. “And here’s where it gets interesting. These properties then quickly move through a series of shell companies or are snapped up by… certain individuals who operate outside the traditional banking system.”
“What kind of individuals?”
“Informal money lenders,” she said, her voice dropping slightly. “Operating out of a local pool hall. I’ve seen some of Barksdale’s notary stamps on their loan agreements too. They’re using his ‘official’ paperwork to legitimize their own shady deals.”
My mind reeled. Barksdale wasn’t just working for Brenda. He was a piece of a much larger, darker puzzle. A corrupt network preying on vulnerable people. And Brenda was involved.
“So, he’s forging deeds for them?” I asked.
“Hard to prove without direct evidence,” Nia replied. “But the connections are undeniable. He profits, they profit, and the original owners lose everything. Your case, with a deed signed when your mother was in hospice, is particularly egregious.”
She looked at me intently. “You’re not just fighting Brenda, Marcus. You’re fighting a system. And Barksdale isn’t working alone.”
The news was a shock, a twist in the narrative I thought I understood. Brenda wasn’t just trying to get her hands on the house; she was using a known corrupt enabler, linking herself to a shady operation that stretched through the county. My mother’s house, a symbol of family, was just another piece of property in a criminal enterprise.
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