My realtor, a woman I called a friend, was in the middle of our open house telling a hand-picked buyer all the reasons he should lowball us.
She was supposed to be getting us top dollar.
We’d trusted her with everything—the sale of our home, the key to our family’s entire future waiting for us in Portland.
The plan was to use our private inspection report as a weapon against us, leveraging our tight timeline to make us fold on a garbage offer so she could pocket both sides of the commission.
She just never counted on my neighbor’s dog having a small bladder, or my brother being a tech lawyer who knows exactly where to find digital fingerprints.
She thought she was setting a trap using my private documents, but she left behind a digital trail of her own greed, and I was about to print it out and hand-deliver her professional ruin in the middle of her big show.
The Weight of a Promise: A Box of Trust
The entire future of my family was packed into a stack of cardboard boxes labeled PORTLAND. My dream job, a lead landscape architect position redesigning the city’s waterfront, was waiting. My husband, Tom, had already lined up interviews. Our daughter, Maya, was tentatively excited about a new high school with a killer arts program. All that stood between us and that future was this house. Our house.
“It’s going to fly off the market,” Danae said, her voice echoing in our newly sparse living room. She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the listing agreement. “Trust me.”
I wanted to trust her. Danae and I weren’t best friends, but we were solidly in the “wine-night-and-book-club” tier of suburban friendship. When she’d gotten her real estate license a few years ago, using her for our sale felt like a given. A way to support a friend while navigating the most stressful transaction of our lives.
“The timeline is just… tight,” I said, tracing the rim of a coffee mug. “We have to be out in sixty days. If the sale falls through, or gets delayed, we’re renting two places at once. We can’t swing that.”
Danae waved a dismissive hand, the charm bracelet on her wrist jingling. “Lark, stop worrying. The market is hot. Your house is gorgeous. This is a slam dunk. We’ll price it aggressively, get a feeding frenzy at the first open house, and you’ll be choosing from five over-asking offers by Sunday night.” Her confidence was a warm blanket, and I let myself pull it a little tighter. She was the professional. She knew best.
The Art of Staging
A week later, our home was no longer ours. It was a product, curated by Danae. She swept through like a director on a film set, pointing and dictating.
“All these personal photos have to go,” she announced, gesturing at the gallery wall of Maya growing up. “Buyers need to imagine their kids here, not yours.” I flinched, but I packed the frames away.
She ran a hand over the scuffed corner of the entryway wall, a barely-there mark from years of Tom’s work bag bumping against it. “We need to hide this. Buyers see one tiny flaw and they start imagining the whole house is falling apart. They’re looking for reasons to lowball you.”
Every comment felt like a tiny cut. My carefully tended succulent garden on the windowsill? “Too much clutter.” The worn, comfortable armchair where I read to Maya every night when she was little? “It looks dated. Let’s shove it in the garage.” It was all sound advice, I knew. It was just business. But as she systematically erased our life from the walls, a small, irritating buzz of resentment started humming under my skin. I chalked it up to the stress of the move.
The Inspection Report’s Shadow
To get ahead of any surprises, we paid for our own pre-listing inspection. The report came back mostly clean—the roof had another decade, the foundation was solid. The inspector noted the HVAC was original to the fifteen-year-old house and that a GFCI outlet in the guest bath needed replacing. Standard stuff.
I forwarded the PDF to Danae, feeling relieved. “Looks pretty good, right?” I wrote.
She called me an hour later, her tone dialed down from its usual peppy hum to a conspiratorial whisper. “Okay, so, that HVAC unit. That’s a potential flag,” she said. “A savvy buyer’s agent is going to see ‘original unit’ and immediately try to knock twenty grand off the price for a replacement.”
“But it works perfectly,” I argued. “We have it serviced twice a year.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “It’s about perception. We have to be very, very careful how we position this. Don’t worry, I’ll handle the narrative. We’ll disclose it, of course, but I’ll frame it as a well-maintained original part, not a looming expense.”
Her strategic framing felt a little slippery, but she was the expert. She was our friend. “Okay, Danae. We’re putting our trust in you.” I could almost hear her smile through the phone. It was the sound of a shark, I’d later realize, tasting blood in the water.
Whispers Before the Storm
The night before the open house, the house was silent and sterile, smelling of fresh paint and lemon cleaner. It looked like a stranger’s home. I wandered through the perfectly staged rooms, a ghost in my own life. My phone buzzed. It was Danae.
“Just wanted to call and say get a good night’s sleep!” she chirped. “Everything is set for a blockbuster tomorrow. The sign is up, the listing is getting crazy traffic online. I’ve even been doing some pre-marketing with a few interested parties.”
“Oh?” I asked, a little thrill of hope cutting through the anxiety. “Who?”
“Just some contacts. A guy whose sister is looking for a place in this exact neighborhood. I gave him a little sneak peek of the highlights. Building that buzz, you know?” she said breezily. “Get ready to pop the champagne, Lark. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be a rich woman.”
She hung up, leaving me standing in the dim light of the kitchen. The phrase “sneak peek of the highlights” snagged in my brain. It felt wrong, but I couldn’t articulate why. I pushed the feeling down. It was just nerves. It had to be. Tomorrow, everything would be fine.
The Cracks in the Facade: Open House Jitters
“Out,” Danae had commanded, shooing us toward the door like we were stray cats. “Go to a movie, get a long lunch. The absolute worst thing for a sale is having the sellers lurking around. It makes people uncomfortable.”
So we went to a cafe downtown. Tom tried to get me to eat a croissant. Maya scrolled through TikTok, blissfully oblivious. I nursed a cold cup of coffee, my leg bouncing under the table, my phone face-up next to my saucer. Every five minutes, I’d pick it up, check for notifications, and set it back down.
An hour in, a text from Danae finally came through. A photo of a small crowd milling on our front lawn. The caption read: ”Great turnout! Getting tons of buzz! :)”
A wave of relief washed over me so powerful it almost made me dizzy. I showed the picture to Tom. “See?” he said, squeezing my hand. “She knows what she’s doing. It’s all going to be okay.” For the first time all day, I let myself believe him. I took a bite of his croissant. It tasted like victory.
An Unexpected Text
Twenty minutes later, my phone buzzed again. It wasn’t Danae. It was my neighbor, Deb from two doors down. We weren’t close, just a friendly wave-and-chat-about-the-weather kind of relationship. The text felt out of place.
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