The woman on the recording said she was my husband’s wife. She gave my mother’s maiden name without hesitation, confirmed the last four digits of my Social Security number, and asked the mortgage company to send the payoff instructions to an email address I had never seen. I asked the representative why they hadn’t called me directly. She said the caller had passed every security question and had even mentioned that I was “hard to reach during the day.” Then she gave me the date of the request. It was the same Tuesday my husband had spent at Ruby’s apartment.
I confronted him with the recording. He didn’t ask how I got it. He asked whether the mortgage company had stopped the payoff. I said yes, and that was when his face changed. He admitted Ruby had called because he wanted to “get the house settled” before something happened to us. I asked what that meant. He said the plan was to refinance the house, pay off the mortgage, and put whatever was left into an account for Ruby. I reminded him that I’d been making every mortgage payment since 2016. Then I asked why Ruby knew my mother’s maiden name. He said he’d given it to her because she needed to pass the bank’s questions.
The mortgage company sent me the entire recording that afternoon. There was one part my husband hadn’t heard. After the representative put the caller on hold, the recording continued for several seconds. Ruby had apparently forgotten the line was still open. A man’s voice asked, “Did she buy it?” Ruby answered, “She thinks the house is hers. That’s the only reason this works.” I recognized the man’s voice immediately. It was my husband. Then Ruby said something that made me stop the recording: “Once the deed changes, she can’t stop us.” I pulled the county property records that night. The newest document wasn’t a payoff request. It was a quitclaim deed already filed in August — with my name forged as the grantor.
