#Escrow officer

[lakeareatitle]

Hire an Experienced Escrow Service Expert Today!

Looking for reliable escrow services in Lake Charles, Louisiana? Look no further! Our experienced team offers seamless and secure escrow solutions for your real estate transactions. Trust Lake Area Title to handle your funds with utmost care and professionalism. Simplify your transaction process with us!

[mirtysrodriguez]

Mirtys Rodriguez - A Dedicated Philanthropist

Mirtys Rodriguez is a dedicated and friendly Escrow officer who has made a name for herself in Southern California. She is known for her exceptional work ethic, loyalty, and intelligence, and has received numerous awards for her outstanding performance. Her colleagues admire her leadership skills and her ability to work well in a team environment. In addition to her work in the real estate industry, Mirtys Rodriguez is also a dedicated philanthropist who is passionate about giving back to her community.

[vintagecultureblog]

Escrow Officer vs. Loan Officer: What’s the Difference?

When buying a home or refinancing, having the right person on your side can make all the difference. Escrow and loan officers are two key players in helping you navigate this process. But while they both play an essential role, escrow officers and loan officers have very different responsibilities. In this article, we will cover some basic information about the differences between an escrow…

[snake5279]

[scary-grace]

Love Like Ghosts - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever.

But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble.

Cross-posted to Ao3

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 1

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it. Rent in the city you live in is so goddamn fucking high that it was either keep living with the worst roommates in existence or find a way out to the suburbs. But the suburbs are wall-to-wall McMansions, so far out of your price range that calling it a bad joke would be an insult to both concepts. All except this one single neighborhood. And within this one single neighborhood, this one single house.

You knew there had to be a reason it hadn’t sold. You’re not an idiot. So you did your research, like the law student you wanted to be before your loans from undergrad kicked in, and found absolutely nothing. No murders in the house’s history. No accidental deaths. No urban legends about curses and creepy children living in the walls. You even went so far as to track down a previous owner, who was perfectly nice, and perfectly willing to talk about the three weeks he spent living there before he sold it and ran for the hills.

No, he said, he didn’t hear anything. Or see anything. No strange accidents or unstable floorboards. There were no strange bumps in the night or objects left out of place. Just a constant, ever-present feeling that he was being watched.

Carbon monoxide leak, maybe. When the pre-purchase inspection happened, you made them check that twice. And for toxic mold. But there was nothing. Just an old house in a too-big lot at the end of a quiet street, hemmed in by the wetlands on three sides. A total steal. You couldn’t believe that no one had bought it.

People come close, your realtor told you on your last walk-through. One time I had a lady come all the way to the end of escrow before she backed out.

Why’d she back out? you asked idly. Your realtor made a face. She didn’t say?

Oh, she said all right. Said something was wrong. That it didn’t like her. The realtor scoffed. It doesn’t like or not like anybody. It’s a house.

He said that, but you could tell he didn’t believe it, and because of that, you asked him if you could finish the walkthrough alone. He left reluctantly, clearly concerned that you were going to back out of the sale, too. You weren’t planning on it. You just wanted to see if there was something you were missing, if everybody else who hadn’t bought this house had picked up on something you didn’t. You walked from room to room, picturing where you’d eat, where you’d sleep, where you’d set up your office when you finally went to law school and got licensed and set up your own practice. You didn’t feel anything wrong, even when you sat down in front of the fireplace and played devil’s advocate one last time, trying to talk yourself out of signing the papers. It was just a house. Your house.

When you came down the front steps, your realtor was leaning against his car, looking more than a little dejected. His face fell when he saw you coming. Change your mind?

You shook your head. Give me the papers, you said. And I’ll need a pen.

Moving in took you one weekend. Less, even. Living in tiny apartments through college and your first few years on the job didn’t give you much room to accumulate pointless stuff, as much as you might have liked gathering little trinkets as a kid. It took you one and a half trips to move all the important stuff, and then it was just you yourself. You, yourself, and your dog.

Looking back, you definitely should have brought Phantom with you to check things out before you signed the papers. In horror movies, dogs are always the first ones to figure things out. But when you hooked up Phantom’s leash and let her out of the car to sniff around, she didn’t react at all beyond how dogs usually react to arriving in a new place – sniffing everything, picking up everything in her mouth, yanking at the leash until you let her tow you around the front yard. When she clambered up the steps to flop down on the porch, you breathed a sigh of relief. Phantom liked it here. You liked it, too.

And you still like it, three and a half weeks after you moved in. In fact, you think you might like it more than you did when you moved in. That’s not a surprise, really – your main criteria in buying a house was that it was a house, and not an apartment you have to share. Sure, your commute in to work sucks now, but it’s worth it when you get to come home to somewhere quiet. No terrible music. No terrible perfume or makeup smears on the bathroom counter. No rotting food in the fridge or moldy dishes in the sink. Nobody’s having very loud, very kinky sex in the room next to yours all night, because there’s no room next to yours – and there’s nobody in your house but you. You sort of wish you’d done the home ownership thing a while ago. It would have saved you a lot of stress.

“It’s kind of perfect, actually,” you say to your friend over FaceTime. “Really perfect. I wish you could come see it.”

“Yeah, me too. But you know how it is. Loans.”

“Loans,” you agree. “The downpayment on this place basically cleaned me out. If anything goes wrong I’m going to have to start selling my organs.”

Your friend laughs. “Start with plasma. You can replace that easier.”

“Or feet pics. I don’t have to replace those at all.”

She laughs, and so do you, and the sound echoes through your house. “Listen to that,” your friend marvels. “It must be dead quiet there.”

Quiet, sure – but over the past three weeks, you’ve noticed that the house feels alive even when nobody’s making noise on purpose. You can hear Phantom’s toenails clicking on the floor in the living room and remind yourself to get a rug. And a couch. You’re doing laundry, and the sound it makes is comforting. The hum of the fridge is, too. “I don’t mind,” you say. “I like it here. The only problem is the dust.”

The house has been empty for years by now, so it makes sense that there’s a lot of dust. You knew that going in, and you’re still slightly horrified at the clouds that come up every time you touch a surface that you haven’t dusted earlier that day. “We’ll just call you Cinderella,” your friend jokes, and you scowl. “Or not. Sheesh, lighten up. And throw a housewarming party! Get some real noise in there.”

“We’ll see,” you say. The idea of letting people you work with know where you live is frankly upsetting. And so is this conversation, honestly. You don’t know where the frustration’s coming from, but you’ve got to get off the phone. “I have to go. Phantom’s eating something and I need to fish it out. Love you.”

“Love y-”

You end the call and drop your phone screen-down on the table. The frustration you felt before is ebbing already, and with it comes relief – and confusion. You know you’ve got a bit of a temper, but you never let it out on friends, and you keep it hidden at work. Even at home you’re careful. You got Phantom from a rescue, and too much banging around or sharp words stresses her out. So why did you get so close there? Is the fairytale thing really that upsetting? Were you really that pissed at the idea of letting someone else in your house? Why?

Because it’s yours. It’s your place, where you don’t have to make excuses for anything you’re doing, where you can do whatever you want. God knows you worked hard to be able to have this place. You’re going to enjoy it the way you want to enjoy it. Nobody else gets a say.

The weird mood clings to you through the afternoon and into the evening. Of course it’s a Sunday, which means you’ve burned through the last of your weekend being mad at a friend over nothing. You could keep moping, or you could try to get out of it. You pick door number two and head out to the back porch with Phantom.

You didn’t pay much attention to the yard when you bought the house. You were more interested in the bigger stuff, like making sure it wasn’t haunted or cursed. But the yard is – nice. Or it will be nice, once you get your shit together and start pulling weeds. You got rid of anything that might make Phantom sick, but you’ve let everything else run wild, and the blackberry bushes along the border to the wetlands grow so high you can’t even see the fence. You did check and make sure there was a fence, of course. Phantom is pretty docile, but it’s hard to trust the judgment of a dog who chews on her own feet and sleeps upside down.

She looks like she’s having fun, though. She’s doing that thing dogs do, where they clearly want to take off at high speed but can’t decide which direction to go. Maybe you should help her out. You pick up her ball out of her toybox and wave it to get her attention. “Come on, Phantom! Go get it! Get your ball!”

She starts running before you’ve even thrown it, and you call her back, laughing. “Come here, you. I’ve still got it. Wait –”

She prances in place, ears pricked and tail wagging. “Wait – okay, go! Go get it!”

You chuck the ball and she takes off after it at full speed, catching it on the run and depositing it back at your feet covered in grass and slime. You remind yourself that slime is part of having a dog. You pick it up and throw it again, and again. On the third throw, Phantom stops mid-chase and freezes in the middle of the yard.

You’ve never seen her do that before. “Phantom,” you say, but she doesn’t turn. “Phantom, leave it. Come here.”

She doesn’t move. She whines, cowers, wiggles a few steps backwards – and then the biggest coyote you’ve ever seen springs out of the darkness, jaws wide open and ready to close on Phantom’s throat.

Phantom turns and bolts, but she’s not fast enough. Its jaws close on her hind leg and she howls. “No,” you shout, your voice somehow strident and shrill at the same time. You pick up the nearest thing you can find – your phone, totally useless – and bounce it off the coyote’s head. It snarls and lets go of Phantom, who limps back to your side, making the worst sounds you’ve ever heard in your life. You can’t help but try to calm her, even as the coyote prowls closer, even as you watch your dog’s blood drip from its teeth. “Sweet baby. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

The coyote’s going to bite you. You’re going to live with that. But while it’s biting you, you can hurt it as much as possible. You’re bigger. You have body weight and hands and a dog you have to protect, and so what if the fucker looks absolutely rabid? There’s a shot for that. They can probably give it to you at the emergency vet when you take Phantom in. The coyote sinks into a crouch, preparing to lunge. You get your feet under you and try to calm the racing of your heart. The coyote snarls, leaps, and –

And. You don’t know how to process what you’re seeing, so you’re stuck on and. And the coyote is poised in midair, thrashing and snarling at something that’s holding it in place with all four of its paws off the ground. And it stays suspended there just long enough for you to blink a few times, for you to realize that what you’re looking at is real. And then its neck breaks with a hideous snap, so hard that its head is nearly torn off, and its body drops to the ground at your feet.

You stagger back, almost tripping on Phantom – and then you scoop her up in your arms, even though she’s not anywhere close to being carryable long-term. It’s the only way to be safe as you back up the porch stairs, as you both collapse just in front of the back door. Something just happened. Your dog’s leg is bleeding and your heart is pounding and something just happened. What was it?

Something broke the coyote’s neck. That didn’t just happen on its own. Something killed the coyote, fast and brutal but not fast enough that you didn’t see fear flash in its eyes when it realized there was no way out. It wasn’t another animal that did that, and there was nobody in your yard but you. This isn’t the kind of thing that happens when you move into a nice, normal house. This is the kind of thing that happens when your house is haunted. And whatever’s haunting your house can snap necks with its bare hands.

But not your neck, you realize. Not your neck, and not Phantom’s. Whatever’s haunting your house can kill things, but it hasn’t killed you or your dog, in spite of having all kinds of opportunities to do so. In fact, this is the first time anything haunted has happened in your house at all, and it paid off for you, big-time. Maybe whatever’s in your house is –

Friendly is not a word you’re going to use when there’s a sort of mutilated, completely dead body in your yard. But you think you can safely call whatever it is ‘not hostile’, at least not to you. And if it’s not being hostile to you, you should be friendly in response. “I don’t know who did that,” you say to your empty yard. “But whoever it was, thank you.”

You don’t wait for a response. Your dog is hurt, and you have to get her to the vet, and for the rest of the night you don’t think about what happened at all. But the next morning, when you go out to chuck the dead coyote over the fence and patch up whatever hole it got in through, the coyote is gone. The only evidence that anything happened at all are a few drops of Phantom’s blood dried on the ground, and a spot of dry, dead grass that was definitely alive last night.

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it, and when you talked to the previous owner, it’s not like he didn’t warn you. But what he warned you about isn’t quite what’s happening to you. The previous owner, a perfectly nice guy named Shirakumo, told you that he spent his entire three weeks here feeling like he was under a microscope. Like it was trying to make up its mind about me, he said. I decided I didn’t want to be here when it figured it out.

You’re pretty sure whatever’s in the house has made up its mind about you. At least enough to decide that between you and the coyote, it would rather keep you around. So unlike Shirakumo, you don’t feel like you’re being watched. You just feel like you’re not alone.

It’s a weird distinction, but it’s undeniably there. There’s something in here with you, something unseen, and if it was watching you, you’d know. It isn’t watching you. It’s doing whatever things it does, and you’re doing the kind of things you do, just coexisting side by side in your new house. It’s there when you leave and it’s there when you come home, just like Phantom is, and Phantom doesn’t seem to mind it. More than a few times, you’ve caught her play-bowing and wagging her tail at empty space. If she was nervous about it, you’d be nervous, too – but dogs always know when a house is haunted in horror movies, and Phantom’s not acting scared. But your house is still haunted. Maybe it’s just not haunted like that.

You tell yourself to just live with it, but it starts getting weird after a little while. If someone was here in person, you’d talk to them, include them in the silly questions you ask Phantom about whether the two of you should get takeout for dinner instead of cooking and whether or not she is in fact the bestest girl in the whole wide world. Maybe the thing in the house is waiting for you to talk to it, and getting upset that you’re not. This is a good time for you to remind yourself, like you do every so often, that the thing in your house isn’t friendly just because it’s not hostile to you, and it can still snap necks with its bare hands. It’s in your best interest to keep it – not hostile.

You keep telling yourself to talk to it, and you keep chickening out for a whole week and a half. Then you’re in the middle of emptying the dishwasher and hit your head on an open cabinet door hard enough that you see stars. Then you stumble backwards and land flat on your ass on the kitchen tiles. “Fuck,” you say, with feeling, and Phantom comes running. “Sorry, sweetie. I’m fine. I’m just a dumbass.”

You’re conscious of the thing in your house, of the fact that it’s here, just like always. It’s not watching you, but if it was, what would it say about this little scene? A response flies into your head, and you say it before you can think of whether or not it’s the smart thing to do. “Yeah, keep laughing. The first time this happens to you I’m going to laugh my ass off.”

There’s no response, but you weren’t expecting one. You should probably have made your opening statement to the ghost a little friendlier. But your neck hasn’t snapped yet, so you pick yourself up off the floor, close the cabinet so you won’t hit your head again and kick off round two of this embarrassment, and get back to work.

Attempt one on talking to the ghost was a failure, but you have a rule about trying things at least three times before you give up, so you try again. This time you come home from work, greet Phantom like always, and then slowly, deliberately turn to face the totally empty patch of air in the hallway. “Hi,” you say. “I’m home.”

Nothing then, either, and if you’d started the sentence with “honey” instead of “hi” you’d have sounded exactly like your dad. You’ve always thought that the way characters in movies deal with their haunted houses is cringe. Yours is a different kind of cringe. Possibly a worse kind of cringe. But when you turn away from the empty air, your neck stays unbroken, and that sense of company, of presence, doesn’t fade. If nothing else, you’re not pissing it off.

To be clear, you don’t talk to your house all the time. You don’t feel like talking all the time. But when you do, you start speaking out loud, and soon it becomes a habit. It might be an embarrassing habit, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. And talking to it instead of tiptoeing around it makes you feel a little better about the situation. Less like you’re being haunted. More like you’re at home.

Your coworkers find out that you moved after two months. You’re not sure how, because you definitely didn’t tell them, but you did have to tell HR to start sending your pay stubs to a new address. Somebody there must have spilled the beans, and as pissed as you are, there’s nothing you can do about it now. Just like there’s nothing you can do about the fact that half your coworkers have invited themselves over for an impromptu housewarming party. Tonight.

“This is stupid,” you complain as you wipe down every flat surface on the first floor, trying to get as much of the ever-present dust up as possible. “I see them enough at work. The whole point of working is so I can afford to spend time not at work.”

Phantom huffs a little bit. She’s mostly friendly, but big groups bother her, especially big groups with too many loud guys. “I would never just invite myself over to someone’s house,” you continue. Back in the day you’d have called a friend to complain. Now you just do it out loud. “How the hell am I going to get them to leave? They’re not going to want to leave. This place is perfect.”

You pause for a second, transfixed with horror at the idea of having to kick your coworkers out. “This sucks. Think it’s too l ate for me to fake my own death?” As soon as you say that, you wish you hadn’t. You don’t want the thing in your house to offer to help. “I can’t do that. If I don’t have a job, I don’t have a mortgage payment, and I need a mortgage payment so I can keep my house.”

You finish dusting, then dig out a baby gate from when Phantom was still potty-training and prop it across the stairs. You don’t want anybody thinking it’s okay to go upstairs. The doorbell rings just as you’re straightening up. Coworkers. You grit your teeth, then paste on a smile and go to open the front door. “Hi. Go ahead and invite yourselves in.”

If you’re going to be fair to your coworkers – and you feel like you have to be, because otherwise you might kill them and wind up with a whole bunch of ghosts haunting your house – not all of them are bad. They don’t have to be bad for you to not want them in your house. Most of them just have irritating habits, like clearing their throats on every other word or laughing too loudly at their own bad jokes. There’s only one or two you really don’t like – they pick on your clothes and the way you do your hair, or steal tea bags from the secret stash you keep in your filing cabinet. Both of them are here, and their presence puts you in an even worse mood than you already were.

The only person you’d actually hang out with after work is Mr. Yagi, but he’s your direct supervisor and also sort of old, which means you can’t be friends with him. He’s here, too, and he seems like he’s trying to rein everybody in. You see him stop one of your coworkers from hopping the baby gate and going upstairs and give him a grateful look. He smiles back. Then he startles, coughs into his handkerchief, and stumbles back against the wall.

You start towards him, concerned, but midway there someone slings an arm around your shoulders and stops you in your tracks. “Honey,” Nakayama slurs, flopping most of her weight onto you, “your house’s vibes are fuck awful.”

You didn’t provide alcohol, but it looks like your coworkers brought their own. You shrug her arm off. “Wow. I’m so glad I asked your opinion when I asked you to come over.”

“You didn’t ask,” Nakayama says, confused. You raise your eyebrows, waiting for the penny to drop. It doesn’t drop. Instead a full-body shiver overtakes her, and she wraps her arms around herself like she’s shielding her body from something or trying to keep warm. “Don’t you feel that? It’s – male – male-eh –”

She thinks your ghost is a man. You’re not even sure your ghost is a ghost. “Malevolent,” she says finally. Oh. “It doesn’t want me here.”

“Maybe that’s because I don’t want you here,” you say, and Nakayama laughs. She thinks you’re joking. Mr. Yagi, who’s snuck up alongside you, knows you aren’t. “If the vibes in here are so bad, go check out the back porch. I fixed the hole in the fence, so there shouldn’t be any more coyotes.”

“Coyotes?” Mr. Yagi asks worriedly as Nakayama wanders off through the house. “Is that how Phantom was hurt?”

“Yeah.” You were worried the incident would put Phantom off the backyard, but she loves it just as much as ever. You have a feeling that’s got something to do with the thing in the house. “Like I said, I fixed the hole. What do you think of the house?”

You haven’t asked that question of anybody else, but Mr. Yagi’s opinion is one you’re interested in. “It’s quite – nice,” he says. “Very – lively.”

The pauses in his speech make you wonder if he’s holding in a coughing fit. He has some kind of lung illness. You’re not sure what it is. “Are you okay?”

“Your house.” Mr. Yagi coughs. “I can see why you purchased it. I can see that you feel comfortable and at home here. And at the same time, I understand Miss Nakayama’s use of the word “malevolent”. Something does not want us here.”

“Maybe it’s just me. I didn’t exactly invite people over.”

“I’m very familiar with your demeanor when dealing with a situation you don’t like,” Mr. Yagi says, and chuckles. He sobers up a few seconds later. “This darkness is orders beyond what you could emit. I don’t know how you live with it. It could drive a person mad.”

If this was somebody else, you’d gaslight the hell out of them. But you like Mr. Yagi, and liking him makes you honest. “I talked to people who’ve owned this place before. They said they felt like you do, or like they’re being watched. But I’ve never felt like that here. Watched over, maybe.”

“Watched over?”

You can’t tell him about the coyote. You just – can’t. “Maybe I’m imagining it and I just like the quiet. I believe you about the vibes. I just don’t feel them.”

“I see,” Mr. Yagi says. He looks troubled. You don’t want him to look like that. You don’t want to be worried about this. “Perhaps it’s just an old man’s musings, my dear. You have a lovely home. You should enjoy it.”

There’s a shriek from outside, and you barely manage to mumble an apology to Mr. Yagi before running to investigate. One of your coworkers is freaking out on the back porch, and frantically stubbing out a cigarette in the bargain. You’ve been patient, but the sight of the cigarette pushes you over the edge. “I thought I told you not to smoke here!”

“There was a thing!” Todoroki gestures frantically towards the other end of the porch. “I saw it. Right there. In the smoke –”

“Use your words,” you say. Something’s uncurling in the pit of your stomach, something you’re not all that eager to put a name on. “What did you see in the smoke of the cigarette you weren’t supposed to light up on my back porch?”

“A hand,” Todoroki says. “I saw a hand reaching for me.”

“Maybe it’s your guilty conscience,” you say. Todoroki is close enough that you can smell alcohol mixed in with the smoke on his breath. “Coming after you for inviting yourself to my house and breaking my rules.”

“Your rules are a little strict.” Nakayama slings her arm around your shoulders again. “Don’t you think?”

“No,” you say, sharper than you should be. “I think you don’t know how to listen!”

“Easy there.” Mr. Yagi slides into the conversation sideways. “Todoroki, our hostess did request no smoking. Very politely. And Nakayama, I’m sure you know that hosting an event can be stressful! Let’s go inside and give our hostess a moment to herself, all right?”

Mr. Yagi is hard to say no to, and Todoroki is eager to get off the porch anyway. Nakayama follows him in, and then you’re alone, seething with an emotion you’re finally forced to name: Jealousy. “Come on,” you say out loud, once you’re sure no one else could possibly be listening. “Of all the people you could show yourself to, you picked him?”

There’s no answer, of course. There never is, and after a while, you’ve got no choice but to go back inside and deal with all your mostly-unwanted guests. The bad vibes are infecting the rest of the party, and Todoroki isn’t being shy about whatever he thinks he saw on the porch. Pretty soon everyone is ready to leave. You think Mr. Yagi will be out the door along with everybody else at high speed, but instead he gathers everybody just inside the door for a group picture. “To commemorate the evening,” he says, but you get the sense he’s not telling the truth. Not all of it, anyway. “Everyone smile!”

Everybody smiles, you included – and then everybody scatters, including a few who are probably too tipsy to be driving. You chase after them, make sure everybody who’s drunk is riding home rather than driving themselves, and slink back inside, tired and frustrated. Your house is messier than you like it, your boss thinks you’re living in some kind of hell dimension, and the thing in your house showed itself to one of your dumbass coworkers and not to you. This evening has sucked.

Your phone pings with a message from Mr. Yagi. He’s texted you the photo he took of the group without comment, and when you see it, you see instantly why he wanted a picture in the first place. There are your coworkers, smiling with varying degrees of discomfort. There’s you, smiling because you’ll have the house to yourself again soon. And there’s the shapeless shadow, defying the light beaming directly onto it, hovering just over your shoulder.

There’s something in your house. You know that now for sure. It shows up as a shadow in pictures, but Todoroki saw it as a hand. Other people feel very differently about it than you do – or it makes them feel differently about it than you do. That’s the only explanation you can think of for why every person who’s set foot in the house has had a borderline allergic reaction to it, except you. There’s nothing special about you. For whatever reason, the thing in the house hates you less than it hates everybody else. Why? And why, if it hates you less than everybody else, did it show itself to Todoroki instead of you?

You’ve been thinking about it for a week. You’re thinking about it so hard that you’ve fucked up installing your front porch swing twice, and so hard that you don’t hear a kid calling out to you from the sidewalk. “Hey! Hey, you! Are you the new neighbor?”

The question snaps you out of your fog. You look up and find a girl who looks like she’s about twelve hovering at the end of the path leading up to your door, taking tentative steps over and then pulling her foot back. She’s holding a foil-covered plate in her hands. Behind her there’s an older guy, maybe in his late teens or early twenties. You’re older than him, but not by much. “Hi,” he says awkwardly. “I told Himiko not to shout. But shouting is so fun!”

His demeanor shifted completely between the first sentence and the second. “You’re Himiko,” you say to the girl, and she grins. Even from this distance, you can see that her teeth are oddly sharp. You turn to the older guy. “And you are?”

“This is my big brother Jin!” Himiko gives him a glowing look, then turns her attention back to you. “Now you tell me your name! That’s what people do!”

“It sure is,” you say, bewildered, and you make your introduction. Then you feel weird shouting at them from the porch, so you make your way down to the edge of the yard, still holding a screwdriver. “So you all are my neighbors?”

“Yes! The pink house just that way!” Himiko points it out. “We live there with Jin’s mom and his brothers and sisters!”

“Sorry it took us so long to introduce ourselves,” Jin says. Then that demeanor switch happens again. “We didn’t want to grace you with our presence until we were sure you wouldn’t cut and run!”

“Everybody leaves,” Himiko says, swinging on your front gate. “We made you cookies to say hi!”

“They’re the best cookies in the world,” Jin says, and Himiko sneaks in past the gate. “Don’t eat them. She still doesn’t know how taste buds work.”

That might be the weirdest thing they’ve said to you so far. “Oh.”

“Himiko, come back,” Jin calls, looking past you. “They didn’t invite us in.”

“I know! But – ooh.” Himiko breaks off midsentence with a shiver. Not the same kind of shiver as you saw from Nakayama when she was here, like it’s too cold – the kind you’d do if a spider walked across the back of your neck. “I just want to meet you! Jeez, calm down!”

“I’m calm,” you say.

“She doesn’t mean you,” Jin says, and a chill runs down your spine. “Himiko, come back!”

Himiko skips down the path back to the gate and steps through. “You should come visit us at our house,” she announces. “He doesn’t want us here.”

He. “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t like to share,” Himiko says. She laughs, high and almost shrill. “I don’t need more people. I have as many people as I want! I have Jin and Jin’s mom and Jin’s sister and Jin’s brother –”

She’s not talking to you. She’s looking back at the house. “Who’s he?” you ask, and she smiles at you. “I’m not joking. I really want to know.”

“You know,” Himiko says. “Or you will, anyway. You’re his.”

“Excuse me?” Something inside you rebels at the thought. “It’s my house.”

“Yeah,” Jin agrees. Finally – a voice of reason. Or not, because what he says next makes everything worse. “You wouldn’t have kept it if he hadn’t let you.”

Himiko nods importantly, still smiling. Then she looks at you, and – “Um, did you just –”

“Just what?” Himiko asks, but you shake your head. There’s no way you saw what you think you saw. There’s no way her pupils closed vertically, almost disappearing, and opened again – like a blink, but not a blink, because eyes aren’t supposed to do that. “Come visit us, then! Everybody in the neighborhood wants to meet you!”

She pushes the plate of cookies into your hands and goes skipping off down the sidewalk. Jin gives an apologetic shrug, followed by a hyperenthusiastic wave goodbye, and follows her, leaving you standing just inside your front gate with a plate of cookies you’re now eighty percent sure are poisoned and even less of an idea about what’s going on than you had before. You decide, with a skill at compartmentalization that you’ve been honing since you moved in, to table it until you’ve set up your porch swing.

But after the swing’s up, you’re hungry. So hungry, in fact, that you pry up the foil on the plate and take a look at the cookies Jin and Himiko brought over. They look suspect. So suspect that you wouldn’t risk eating them unless you were starving, and even then you might try chewing off your own arm first. It’s too bad. You really could have gone for a cookie right about now.

But you’re an adult, and you have your own house, and a decent amount of ingredients in your pantry. Maybe cookies aren’t as out of reach as you thought they were.

One quick shower later, you’re in the kitchen, measuring out ingredients for your favorite cookie recipe. Back in the day you’d play music, or call somebody. Now you either talk to Phantom, talk to the thing in the house, or both. But Phantom is napping on the tiles on the front hall – her favorite spot on hot days, even though you have air conditioning and you like to use it. That’s a good thing. You and the thing in your house need to have a talk.

“You’ve got an attitude problem, huh?” Your opening lines with the thing in your house are never as polite as they probably should be. “I’m fine with you scaring my coworkers. I’m pretty sure I thanked you for that one. But those were my neighbors. I have to live with them. Or near them. And they seemed – nice.”

It gets quiet after that. Sometimes you can use the silence to convince yourself that the ghost is answering, just not in a way you’re able to hear. Sometimes you even imagine what the ghost is saying. Today is one of those days. “Okay, fine. They were weird. I still have to live with them.” But you have to live with the ghost, too, and the ghost apparently has some weird ideas about what’s going on here. “And while we’re talking about it, what’s this possessive shit? You think you own me? You’ve talked more to my twelve-year-old neighbor than you have to me, so you’ve got a lot of nerve talking about me like I belong to you.”

You’ve got no idea what the ghost would say in response to that, and you have to get out your dry ingredients. You head to the pantry and dig out what’s left of your flour, noting that you’ve got a new bag waiting, and go back to the counter. Except something happens to you midway there. You step into a cold spot, colder than anything you’ve ever felt in your life, and your hands go nerveless and numb like you’ve been flash-frozen. The bag of flour drops from your hands and splits open on the floor, letting up a puff of flour that climbs high into the air like a mushroom cloud. Higher than it should. But that’s not what you’re looking at. You’re looking at the two clean spots on the flour-coated floor, directly in front of you. Two clean spots in the shape of a pair of feet.

They’re not children’s footprints. Whatever’s in your house isn’t a child like Himiko – it’s an adult, like you, and it’s standing really close to you. Your eyes are drawn almost inexorably upwards through the already-dissipating cloud of flour. You’re looking too late. You almost miss it. But before the flour falls completely back to the floor, you see the outline of a torso, the slope of a shoulder. The length of an arm. And the shape of one hand, thumb and forefinger poised to flick against your forehead.

You react before you can think about it. “What are you, twelve?” You wave your hand through the air, trying to dissipate the rest of the cloud, resolutely ignoring the way you obliterate the shoulder, the torso. “Learn some manners.”

The cloud vanishes, and the figure with it. You could almost believe it had never happened at all, except for the pair of clean footprints on your otherwise flour-covered floor.

[howlingday]

Lancaster Dream House

Ruby: I never cared about playing with Barbie growing up. They were the perfect sacrificial lambs to my Power Rangers and their awesome powers!

Jaune: I played with Barbie when I played with my sisters. I never knew about the Barbie world, so I was just learning.

Ruby: How to play Barbie? Is it really that different?

Jaune: Well, yeah, because everything is so every-day and situational in the Barbie world. It's totally different from how you'd play with Naruto figures.

Ruby: True.

Jaune: I'm not making them fly up in the air and shouting jutsus at each other and punching each other in the face.

Ruby: "Kage Bunshin!" Heh heh heh...

Jaune: Exactly! I'd do all the voices, too, but... With Barbie, the way girls played, it was all situational and slice of life. They'd be like...

Jaune: "Here, they're having dinner right now."

Ruby: Huh... I never realized.

Jaune: "And now they're going driving in their car."

Ruby: Where would they go?

Jaune: Probably to their other friends' house. And I would do it because I didn't give a fuck! I just wanted to play with toys!

Ruby: What do they do when they get to their friends' house?

Jaune: They'd have dinner again.

Ruby: And after that?

Jaune: Probably go on a tour of the house. Y'know, just showing off their stuff like going on a tour.

Ruby: "I'm probably gonna have to do some landscaping and renovations if I wanna sell."

Jaune: Yeah, 'cause the houses are really nice, y'know, and-

Ruby: "Right now, I'm looking to lease with an option to buy." Like, they get really adult about it.

Jaune: Hahaha! "Yeah, I'm thinking, you know, it'll help build some equity and I think the ROI in ten years... It'll probably be... I wanna say, like..."

Ruby: "Ken is such an idiot! I told him to hire a lawyer before we go through escrow!"

Jaune: "I don't wanna get fucked by fees!"

Ruby: Heeheeheehee!

Jaune: HAHAHAHA!

Ruby: "Honey? It's time to stop playing with your dolls."

Jaune: "Play with the Dragon Ball figures, instead. Like your idiot sister."

Jaune: "And they'd go boom! A kaboosh! Bwaah! Bwerk! Kwah! And they crash into each other and smashes into rocks!"

Ruby: Snrk! Ken's like, "Barbie, I don't have a low sperm count! It's just, they have low motility!"

Jaune: "How is that better?!"

Ruby: "It's- I- I- There are pills I can take!"

Jaune: "Thanks for playing dollhouse with me~!"

Ruby: Yeah, and you're just sitting there in stunned silence.

Jaune: Ha ha ha ha!

Ruby: "With today's IVF advancements-!"

Jaune: "You know that doesn't work! I was just reading in GOOP the other day!"

Ruby: "It's worth a shot, at least!"

Jaune: "Is it two thousand lien worth a shot?! We have bills to pay, Ken!"

Ruby: "Maybe we wouldn't have so many bills to pay if you didn't run this god damned Malibu Dreamhouse 24/7!"

Jaune: "You always want the convertible! You want it custom-painted pink!"

Ruby: "Have you ever considered the climate implications on this dream car?!"

Jaune: "It's not even electric! You can see the gas intake right there!"

Ruby: "THAT'S BULLSHIT, KEN! ELECTRIC CARS STILL WORK OFF THE SAME GRID!"

Ruby: HAHAHA!

Jaune: HAHAHA!

Ruby: "Yeah, but they don't have emissions, Barbie! It's the best we can do, unless this society starts investing in trains and public infrastructure! That's all we can do!"

Jaune: "THEY TRIED, KEN! They tried in Mantle, and you know what? It was a FUCKING RED-TAPE BUREAUCRATIC DISASTER!"

Ruby: And your sisters are, like, "Can I go home?"

Jaune: HAHAHAHA!

Ruby: HAHAHAHA!

Ruby: "Barbie, that's why you need to run for office. You've been saying it your whole life, and you never do it."

Jaune: "...You know what, Ken? You're right."

Ruby: ...I love you.

Jaune: ...I love you.

Ruby: You can do anything.

Jaune: ...

Ruby: ...

Ruby: "Now let's have some tea!"

Jaune: Heh heh heh...

Jaune: MALIBU~! BARBIE DREAMHOUSE~!

Ruby: "Do you wanna be Ken now?"

Jaune: "Agh, well..."

Ruby: "You know, it's getting pretty late...

Jaune: "It's, like, three-thirty."

Ruby: "Can I bring Godzilla into this?"

Jaune: "Sure~! He can be who I'm running against for local office~!"

Ruby: "SKRREEEEEEEE! EEEEK-OOOONK~!"

Jaune: Now that I'd love to see.

Ruby: "Barbie, I want you to meet my new friend, Godzilla!"

Ruby: "Graaaaaagh!"

Ruby: "Oh my god! THE Godzilla?!"

Ruby: "Yeah, have you heard of him?"

Ruby: "HE'S WHO I'M RUNNING AGAINST~!"

Ruby: Boo-wooow-wow-wooow~!

Jaune: MALIBU~! BARBIE DREAMHOUSE~!

Jaune: Godzilla is running on a strong destroy the city platform.

Ruby: "I've gotta stop him~!"

Jaune: "And you know what? I say with all these politicians, I'd say they're all trying to destroy the city! AT LEAST HE'S HONEST ABOUT IT!"

Ruby: "He tells it like it is!"

Ruby: RAAAAAAAAAAAGHK!

Ruby: "Y'see?!"

Jaune: MALIBU~! BARBIE DREAMHOUSE~!

Jaune: ...What the fuck were we talking about before this?

Ruby: "Anyways, same time, 4PM?"

Jaune: "Yeah, sure..."

Ruby: "I'll bring Ghidorah..."

Jaune: "Ugh... Can't I just do homework instead?"

Ruby: "Can you bring the Technodrome with all the goop, too? I've got an idea..."

[dosesofcommonsense]

The Texas property tax system is a racket! They’ve had ALL year to determine taxes and wait for the last 2.5 months to tell you what they are. Your Escrow’s been collecting based on last year’s value. This year’s numbers are always different, normally higher.

Tax Assessor offices can raise primary residence taxes by as much as 10%. Tell me an office that’s not raising taxes and revenue. “OMG. Who would have thought? Your taxes went up just high/low enough to not be contested. So weird.” Fuck off!

The same offices can raise investment property taxes by as much as 20%!

The Texas Legislature has much to fix. If we’re keeping property taxes the same, why are they going up? Why are we spending more? Why aren’t we doing more with what we have? Why aren’t we paying teachers more? Why do we still have property taxes? We generate plenty of tax through the state tax rate.

On the surface, Dade Phelan (Speaker of Texas House) is running a people’s government more akin to Globalism than real Conservatism that’s by the people and for the people (not his friends, lobbyists, and everyone who’s not a Texan). Tell me how higher taxes and less transparency (#openthebooks, seriously where does the money go?) equal more freedom and prosperity.

Texas is still a conservative state, but we need a leader who’s not a Globalist and traitor.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I don't think Midst is this kind of show, especially not this close to endgame, so this isn't going to happen. But, given that Spahr was pressured into donating his Valor to his successor, then presumably that Valor went to Weepe as part of padding his account for the Tripotentiary thing, the funniest thing Spahr can do is file a suit pointing out that he (presumably) donated the Valor specifically to his successor as Prime Consector, and as Weepe does not formally hold that office, rather he supersedes it by holding a separate office, Weepe is therefore not the intended recipient, thus he demands that the Valor amount be debited from Weepe's account and held in escrow until it can be transferred to whoever next holds the specific office of Prime Consector. Don't even demand it back, just file a suit to make a tedious and lengthy point about process and procedure for unclear reasons and goals. He has literally nothing to gain from this, not even morally or ideologically, but this concept amuses me.

Hell, if he can really find something in the laws and procedures underlying the Tripotentiary appointment, file a legal challenge about that too. It will not go well AT ALL, but it'd be funny to do.

Again, like, this is not really that kind of narrative, so I'm not pitching this seriously, but I do think it's the funniest thing (as well as most unreasonable and useless) Spahr can do, file some point-y and futile lawsuits.

[coochiequeens]

Maybe now that the people with the money to buy babies are being scammed even IVF proponents will admit that there needs to be regulations in the Buy a Baby Business

Dominique Side, the owner of Surrogacy Escrow Account Management, poses in 2023 at Vegan Fashion Week in Los Angeles.

(Gilbert Flores / WWD via Getty Images)

By Matt Hamilton Staff Writer June 30, 2024 

They scrimped, and they saved. Some asked family and friends to pitch in. Others took out loans for tens of thousands of dollars.

Their goal was twofold: To raise the small fortune necessary to pay for a surrogate mother. And to realize a dream previously impossible — having a child of their own.

Hundreds of people across California, the U.S. and around the globe put their money, sometimes $50,000 or more, into the hands of a Texas-based escrow company so the funds could be held in trust and doled out to a surrogate for healthcare costs, insurance and compensation.

But this month, expectant parents and their surrogates learned the money they had set aside at Houston-based Surrogacy Escrow Account Management, or SEAM, is inaccessible and likely gone.

“We want answers,” said Chris Kettmann of Fair Oaks, Calif., a suburb of Sacramento. “Is there recourse to get the money back? If not, what can we do?”

Chris Kettmann and his wife with their ultrasound in an undated photo. (Chris Kettmann)

Kettmann, 33, said he and his wife had about $45,000 in their escrow account, money owed to their surrogate mother, who is pregnant with their baby boy and due in October. “We don’t know enough to say what happened,” he said. “We just know there’s something crazy going on.”

Police in Houston have opened a wide-reaching investigation. Christina Garza, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Houston field office, confirmed last week that the agency also is investigating SEAM. The FBI has developed a public portal for SEAM clients to report their account information and how much money they believe they are owed. Garza, however, cautioned that the inquiry was in its early stages and said, “We’re trying to compile as much information as possible.”

A married same-sex couple in Washington, D.C., says they are out $55,000. A Los Feliz couple said they demanded their $40,111 be returned and believe it is gone. Arielle Mitton, an L.A. native who recently moved to Bellingham, Wash., can recite the amount that she and her husband are missing down to the cent: $37,721.44.

“I assumed naively that an escrow account was a safe thing,” said Mitton, whose surrogate mother in Indiana is pregnant with their daughter and is due to deliver on Christmas Eve.

Mitton has joined hundreds of affected parents and surrogates in a private Facebook group that has become a forum for venting, grieving, exchanging information and trying to answer the overriding questions: What happened here? And where did all their money go?

Scrutiny has centered on the sole owner of SEAM, Dominique Side, who has told customers that she had once been a surrogate. The 44-year-old billed herself as an entrepreneur of multimillion dollar businesses in the Houston area, including a vegan grocery store, a nonprofit school, a vegan music studio, and the surrogacy escrow outfit. She walked the red carpet in L.A. for vegan fashion events and ran a concierge service for those seeking a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

“One common thread runs through all my businesses: each is based firmly on a foundation of compassion — for others, for myself and for the planet,” she told a Houston publication in 2022.

Side did not respond to calls or written questions. Emails to Side triggered an auto-response that doubled as a press statement. Citing the “active investigation by federal authorities,” Side wrote in the email, “Under the advice of counsel, I am not permitted to respond to any inquiries regarding the investigation.”

On Thursday, Side and SEAM were hit by a lawsuit from a merchant cash-advance lender, the third such lawsuit this year. Merchant cash advance lenders provide small businesses with quick infusions of money at high fees akin to interest rates of 50% to 100%.

A judge in Texas also froze all of the company’s accounts along with Side’s other businesses after a SEAM client, Marieke Slik, sued over her “vanished” $28,000.

Calling herself a “victim of a scam,” Slik alleged that Side and her company had lured her and others “into a fiduciary relationship in order to steal their escrow funds,” according to her lawsuit, which was filed in Texas. “The Defendants have left hundreds of surrogates throughout the country — who are pregnant with a child that does not belong to them — with no way to pay for necessary prenatal care.”

Sides’ actions, according to the lawsuit, “are nothing short of evil.”

Struggling parents

Many surrogacies often involve LGBTQ+ couples who want children, or older couples for whom childbearing is no longer a viable possibility.

For others, the road to surrogacy is one of heartbreak and tragedy.

The married woman in Los Feliz said she had had multiple miscarriages. She was recently pregnant but gave birth in the second trimester. The newborn died at Cedars-Sinai in his parents’ arms.

The couple turned to surrogacy after exhausting all other options. They selected a surrogate mother, completed the necessary contract — which often requires using an escrow firm — and put more than $40,000 into the account, a portion of the overall cost. But their embryo had yet to be transferred into the surrogate mother.

“Nothing is clear,” she said, explaining that she and her husband demanded their funds weeks ago. “Obviously that fell on deaf ears — we didn’t get our money back,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because their extended family remains unaware of their attempt at using a surrogate.

“I’d love to carry this child,” she said, and “not spend any money on a surrogate. There’s a level of that, where you feel so terribly sad. You feel sad about the money, but you feel sad about the situation.”

‘Something really bad has happened’

For intended parents and surrogates, trouble emerged around late May, when surrogates did not receive their usual payments.

Arielle Mitton gives surrogate mother Tena Doan’s belly a kiss. Doan is carrying Mitton’s baby.  (Arielle Mitton)

In early June, Tena Doan — a 42-year-old surrogate mother in Indiana — said she noticed her bank account balance was lower than expected and realized her monthly payment and allowance had not come through. Her surrogacy agency told her that banking issues at SEAM had delayed the arrival of the money.

“I said, ‘No problem, they’ll get it fixed,’” Doan recalled, figuring that banking issues happen. When she logged into SEAM’s portal, she saw that the money listed as due her was still there.

Then came a June 12 email from Side claiming that fraudulent charges had prompted Capitol One to freeze SEAM’s account.

“Some payments were able to go through before the accounts were frozen,” Side wrote in the email. She stated that new bank accounts were established and promised service would be restored.

Two days later, however, Side sent another email indicating that “all operations have been placed on hold” due to legal action.

Doan said that the email stopped her in her tracks.

“That’s when we were like, ‘Oh s—, this is not good. Something really bad has happened,’” Doan recalled. “From there, it’s been a whirlwind.”

Mitton — the mother of the child that Doan is carrying — was at home more than 2,000 miles west.

“The first few days, I barely slept, I was nauseous from all the emotional aspects and had vertigo,” Mitton remembered.

She contacted the FBI, Houston police, the Texas attorney general. Mitton even emailed the CEO of Capital One, questioning how the money could apparently vanish.

Tena Doan, left, and Arielle Mitton. (Arielle Mitton)

Both Doan and Mitton joined the Facebook group and realized they were part of a club they never wanted membership in: those affected by SEAM’s financial collapse.

An informal poll among members suggested that about $10 million was unaccounted for. Parents and surrogates from across the country and around the world have traded information in the Facebook group about current police investigations and become sleuths themselves.

They’ve pored over Side’s various businesses — the Vgn Bae Music Studio, and Nikki Green, a luxury vegan fashion line. They’ve also mined her social media accounts.

A recent post on Side’s Instagram page VgnBaeDom, which has since been deleted, recounted her birthday week in June: Side said she flew to L.A., enjoyed a vegan dinner at the upscale Culver City vegan restaurant Shojin, dined at Crossroads Kitchen and Craig’s — both frequent celebrity hotspots — enjoyed a “full day of spa and cabana” at the Four Seasons, before doing fittings at Celine, the luxury French fashion house.

“The week this was going down was also her birthday week,” said Mitton, who recalled thinking, “She’s probably spending our escrow money there.”

Signs of financial difficulty SEAM was first registered in Texas in 2014. Testimonials from 2017 onward show glowing reviews, and one parent told The Times he had used SEAM for their first child without issue.

Lawsuits from cash advance lenders filed against SEAM and Side in New York this year indicate mounting financial trouble in recent months.

So-called merchant cash-advance lenders send sums of money to distressed businesses, often with a rapid turnaround, and, in exchange, a business lets the lender withdraw a portion of future receipts directly from the business’ bank account to pay off the debt. Cash-advance lenders often insist they aren’t lenders and that cash advances against future revenue aren’t technically loans — but New York’s former attorney general had lambasted the industry for predatory debt-collection practices.

In January, Side received an unspecified sum from Pearl Delta Funding and agreed to pay back $69,500. But she defaulted the next month, prompting the lender to sue her in New York in March. (Pearl Delta’s attorney did not respond to an email seeking comment.)

On May 6, Side secured $650,000 from Dynasty Capital and agreed to pay $975,000, or 150% of the amount borrowed, according to court records.

Under the agreement, the lender was allowed to debit $12,500 per day from SEAM’s account until the full amount was paid back. On May 31, Dynasty Capital said in court papers, SEAM “breached the agreement” and either failed to put revenue into the business account or diverted it elsewhere, leaving Dynasty unable to recoup its money.

Dynasty Capital sued Side, SEAM and her various businesses on June 18. Dynasty’s lawyer declined to comment.

On May 29, Side obtained $100,000 from Arsenal Funding and agreed to allow Arsenal to deduct 1.25% of SEAM’s daily revenue from its business bank account until $149,000 was paid off.

Arsenal sued Side and SEAM last week after Side stopped making payments on June 21 and defaulted, according to the lawsuit filed in New York, which demands about $190,000 to cover the outstanding debt and fees.

To secure the loan from Arsenal, Side had to disclose her largest revenue sources. She listed three companies, all in Southern California: US Harvest Babies Surrogacy in the City of Industry; Mle & Mlang International Surrogacy in L.A.; and a Shady Grove Fertility office in Solana Beach.

But there is reason to doubt the accuracy of what Side told the lender. In a statement, Shady Grove said it had no financial relationship with Side or SEAM and did not refer patients to the company, explaining that “some patients may have independently engaged with SEAM.”

Further, the name that Side had listed as her contact has never been an employee of Shady Grove, according to a person familiar with the company’s operations. And the address she listed for Shady Grove is a small branch in the San Diego area that’s been open for only a few months; Shady Grove is headquartered in Maryland and has 49 locations nationwide.

Neither Harvest Babies or Mlan responded to requests for comment.

Side told Arsenal that she was the 100% owner of SEAM and projected an average monthly revenue of $2.78 million, according to a copy of the financial agreement that Arsenal included with its lawsuit.

Lori Hood, a Houston-based attorney who is representing Slik — the client who sued Side this month in Texas — said she was confounded by SEAM’s financial practices. She said the lawsuit from Dynasty Capital indicated that escrow money was used to secure the $650,000 cash payment.

“How do you put up escrow funds as collateral?” said Hood. “That’s my first indication that something’s desperately wrong. You don’t recognize escrow funds as revenue.”

Second, Hood said, SEAM’s tax records that she’s reviewed also showed revenue of “millions of dollars.”

“Did her company make millions of dollars, or is she putting into the tax returns that the escrow money was her revenue?” Hood asked.

To press their client’s lawsuit against SEAM, Hood and her law partner, Marianne Robak, petitioned a judge to freeze all of SEAM’s accounts at Capital One along with other accounts owned or controlled by Side.

“The evidence shows that SEAM’s escrow account with Capital One ... has no funds available,” notes the request for a restraining order to freeze all accounts. “SEAM is insolvent.”

In the filing, Hood also accused SEAM of diverting money into accounts in the name of Life Escrow LLC, a company registered last year to Side’s business partner, Anthony Hall, who is also a defendant in the suit filed by Slik.

Side’s “actions appear to be to avoid having to face the clients she defrauded. It appears she had absconded,” states the restraining order, which a Harris County, Texas, judge signed off on June 21.

Reached by phone on Thursday, Hall said he “had no connection with SEAM,” adding, “I wish I had answers.” Hall said he was a business partner of Side in the vegan music studio, Vgn Bae Studios, adding, “Everything was great until it wasn’t.”

Hall said he did not know if Side had an attorney and said that he was speaking only for himself.

“She’s not gonna respond,” he said of Side. “I’m defending myself. I don’t know what they have going on.”

Pregnancies don’t wait

For Hood and hundreds of surrogate mothers and parents, questions mount.

“I won’t cast blame on any of the parents. They did everything they were supposed to do,” Hood said.

Time is short, however, for ongoing pregnancies and those couples who hope to have a surrogate receive an embryo soon.

Kettmann, from the Sacramento area, said their surrogate mother is 22 weeks pregnant. Of the $57,000 they put into SEAM, he said, $45,000 is missing. The rest had already been distributed to the surrogate.

“It’s a scramble,” he said. He and his wife had some money saved for additional expenses, which they’ve used to cover the June payment that never arrived from SEAM. He’s now fundraising from family and friends.

“We told her we’ll do everything we can to keep her up to date on payments,” he said, “but [we’re] asking her to be patient.”

Mitton and her surrogate mother, Doan, have started collecting donations through GoFundMe and plan to extend the payment terms two years, rather than having all the money sent to Doan shortly after delivery.

“I’m growing a healthy baby girl for them,” Doan said, “and that’s all that matters.”

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

The Mysterious Death of Charles Morgan

Thirty-nine-year-old Chuck Morgan was a successful businessman who was the president of his own escrow agency. He was also a potential witness in a state land fraud case involving a known crime boss. On March 22, 1977, he left his Tucson, Arizona home to drive two of his daughters to school. After dropping them off, he vanished. Three days later, he arrived back at his home. According to his wife, Ruth, he was missing a shoe, had a plastic handcuff around one ankle, and had his hands tied together with a plastic zip tie. He could not speak, but with a pen and paper, he wrote down that he had been kidnapped and tortured. He also wrote that a hallucinogenic drug had been painted on his throat. He claimed that this drug would drive him insane or kill him if he ingested it. He asked Ruth to move his car, because he did not want "them" to know that he had returned home. However, he would not say who "they" were. He also told her not to call the police because a hit would be put out on the lives of them and their family members. For one week, Ruth nursed Chuck back to health by feeding him with an eye dropper. Before his voice returned, he began to allude to a secret identity. He claimed that he had worked as an agent for the federal government and he fought against organized crime. He also claimed that "they" had taken his treasury identification. He said that he escaped from his captors near Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport. After his kidnapping, Chuck became justifiably paranoid. He began wearing a bulletproof vest and even grew a beard to further mask his identity. He also started driving his daughters to and from school. He informed the school that nobody else should be allowed to pick them up. On June 7, two months after his initial disappearance, Chuck vanished again. Shortly before his second disappearance, he told his father that if anything were to happen to him, there was a letter he had written that would tell them who was responsible. The letter was never found; however, nine days later, an unidentified woman called Ruth and said: "Chuck is alright, Ecclesiastics 12: 1-8". This is a reference to a Bible passage, which reads, in part: "Men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road. Remember him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it." Two days later, Chuck was found shot to death despite the fact he was found wearing a bulletproof vest. His body was found in the desert thirty feet off the highway in the San Juan Springs area. He had been shot once in the back of the head with a bullet from his .357 Magnum, which was lying beside him. No fingerprints were found on it. Gunshot residue was found on his left hand, indicating he had fired a weapon. In his car, police found a note that had directions to the crime scene written in his handwriting. Also found in the car were several weapons, ammunition, and a CB radio. Strangely, a piece of one of his teeth was found wrapped in a white handkerchief in the back seat. A pair of sunglasses was also found that did not belong to him. Strangely, Chuck had clipped a $2 bill inside his underwear. Written on the bill were seven Spanish names from the letters A to G. Also, Ecclesiastics 12 was written, with the verses 1 through 8 marked by arrows drawn on the bill's serial number. This was the same reference that the female caller had made to Ruth. On the back of the bill, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were numbered 1 through 7. Also, a crude map was drawn, which show several roads between Tucson and the Mexican border. The towns Robles Junction and Sasabe were marked; these towns are apparently known for smuggling. Two days after Chuck's death, an anonymous woman spoke to an officer for the Pima County Sheriff's Department on the telephone. She claimed that he was supposed to meet her at a local motel shortly before he died. She claimed that her nickname was "Green Eyes" and that she was the same woman that had called Ruth several days earlier. She also claimed that at the motel, Chuck showed her a briefcase containing several thousand dollars in cash. He said that the money would buy him out of a gang contract that had been put on his life. Surprisingly, despite the bizarre evidence, authorities ruled that Chuck committed suicide. They believed that he did so either because of financial difficulties or fears for his safety. His family and a reporter named Don Deveraux believe he was murdered. Some investigators also suspect that his death was not a suicide. Shortly after Chuck's death, his impounded car was broken into while it was in police possession. Around that same time, his office was also ransacked. Three weeks after his death, two men claiming to be FBI agents arrived at the Morgan home. They told Ruth that they had to look through the house. They tore the house apart and searched for quite awhile. It is unknown if they ever found anything or if they were even FBI agents. When Deveraux contacted the FBI, they claimed that they had never even heard of Chuck Morgan. There are several rumors surrounding this case, including that Chuck was killed because he was involved with illegal activity or was doing secret work for the government. His death seems just as unexplained as the events leading to it.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries-movedd]

39 year old Chuck Morgan was a successful businessman who was the president of his own escrow agency. He was also a potential witness in a state land fraud case involving a known crime boss. On March 22, 1977, he left his Tucson, Arizona home to drive two of his daughters to school. After dropping them off, he vanished.

Three days later, he arrived back at his home. According to his wife, Ruth, he was missing a shoe, had a plastic handcuff around one ankle, and had his hands tied together with a plastic zip tie. He could not speak, but with a pen and paper, he wrote down that he had been kidnapped and tortured. He also wrote that a hallucinogenic drug had been painted on his throat. He claimed that this drug would drive him insane or kill him if he ingested it. He asked Ruth to move his car, because he did not want "them" to know that he had returned home. However, he would not say who "they" were. He also told her not to call the police because a hit would be put out on the lives of them and their family members. For one week, Ruth nursed Chuck back to health by feeding him with an eye dropper. Before his voice returned, he began to allude to a secret identity. He claimed that he had worked as an agent for the federal government and he fought against organized crime. He also claimed that "they" had taken his treasury identification. He said that he escaped from his captors near Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport. After his kidnapping, Chuck became justifiably paranoid. He began wearing a bulletproof vest and even grew a beard to further mask his identity. He also started driving his daughters to and from school. He informed the school that nobody else should be allowed to pick them up.

On June 7, two months after his initial disappearance, Chuck vanished again. Shortly before his second disappearance, he told his father that if anything were to happen to him, there was a letter he had written that would tell them who was responsible. The letter was never found; however, nine days later, an unidentified woman called Ruth and said: "Chuck is alright, Ecclesiastics 12: 1-8". This is a reference to a Bible passage, which reads, in part: "Men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road. Remember him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was and the spirit will return to God who gave it." Two days later, Chuck was found shot to death despite the fact he was found wearing a bulletproof vest.

His body was found in the desert thirty feet off the highway in the San Juan Springs area. He had been shot once in the back of the head with a bullet from his .357 Magnum, which was lying beside him. No fingerprints were found on it. Gunshot residue was found on his left hand, indicating he had fired a weapon. In his car, police found a note that had directions to the crime scene written in his handwriting. Also found in the car were several weapons, ammunition, and a CB radio.

Strangely, a piece of one of his teeth was found wrapped in a white handkerchief in the back seat. A pair of sunglasses was also found that did not belong to him. Strangely, Chuck had clipped a $2 bill inside his underwear. Written on the bill were seven Spanish names from the letters A to G. Also, Ecclesiastics 12 was written, with the verses 1 through 8 marked by arrows drawn on the bill's serial number. This was the same reference that the female caller had made to Ruth. On the back of the bill, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were numbered 1 through 7. Also, a crude map was drawn, which show several roads between Tucson and the Mexican border. The towns Robles Junction and Sasabe were marked; these towns are apparently known for smuggling. Two days after Chuck's death, an anonymous woman spoke to an officer for the Pima County Sheriff's Department on the telephone. She claimed that he was supposed to meet her at a local motel shortly before he died. She claimed that her nickname was "Green Eyes" and that she was the same woman that had called Ruth several days earlier. She also claimed that at the motel, Chuck showed her a briefcase containing several thousand dollars in cash. He said that the money would buy him out of a gang contract that had been put on his life.

Surprisingly, despite the bizarre evidence, authorities ruled that Chuck committed suicide. They believed that he did so either because of financial difficulties or fears for his safety. His family and a reporter named Don Deveraux believe he was murdered. Some investigators also suspect that his death was not a suicide. Shortly after Chuck's death, his impounded car was broken into while it was in police possession.

[lakeareatitle]

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[pbandjesse]

I continued to not feel well today but my energy was more normal. My mouth and throat hurt a ton but I was determined to have a nice day. And I did for the most part! Even if it was just raining so hard and was not snow. I'm very mad that it isnt snow.

I slept a little better. Having a bandaid in my lip was not comfortable but it is helping. I was able to sleep with just the one on but I would change it out like 5 times today. The air hurts it so I'm not comfortable without a bandaid but when it's on if it gets even a little wet it starts to curl and then I can't stop messing with it and once I get there I have to just take it off and start over. I'm trying really hard to leave it alone.

I snoozed my alarm and dozed for 10 extra minutes because I felt so bad. But I got up mostly because I was looking forward to my outfit today. One of my favorite dresses and my favorite sweatshirt. It helped me feel a little more positive towards the day.

James packed up my lunch because they are great. I got myself ready and headed out.

I left a few minutes later then planned but I still made it to camp before the rain started. Which really was all that mattered.

I started up in the art building. I had some stuff to drop off. I emptied the box of stuff I brought but I didn't put things away because it was just to cold. I might try again later but for now it's just a pile of nonsense on the picnic table.

I went back to the office to have my leftovers for breakfast. I was in a pretty good mood despite not feeling amazing.

I had some stuff to do today. I had three screens going at once. I wanted to get the flash sheets drawn up for James and finish mine. Jess wanted to share them with the tattoo artist we are going to. So that was something to focus on for a while.

I also had some sorting of emails for Alexi. I got that done pretty quickly and sent that off. Once everyone else was in the office it was pouring out. And it would continue to get worse throughout the day. All the schools in the area decided to close at noon. So Alexi decided in an abundance of caution, to close the office early too.

We decided we would leave at 2. So I had a few hours to do stuff. I would wander over to the lodge at one point. I was surprised how heavy the rain drops were and how muddy the ground was. I really really wished it was snow.

When I got back to the office from my walk I hsd emails! From the mortgage people! It was time to do some pre closing documents. Explanations and breakdowns about escrow and what we will owe and all the little ins and outs of everything. And I'm trying to not be blasé about homeownership but also. I think we will be great at it. I find it very annoying when articles are like if you aren't a renter you are going to have to take care of all the maintenance! And I'm like. We already do that?? And like I love Tina and Will but 80% of the time I am the one fixing things. Or dealing with the repair people. We haven't had an oven for almost 3 weeks! The backdoor leaks air like crazy. Two of our windows are broken! I am smart and handy and we are going to work hard to save money to have for repairs and be thoughtful about everything we do. I think this is going to be really good for us in a lot of different ways. Even if some stuff goes wrong, I think we will handle it well. I am sure I sound a little naive but also, I have done a ton of research and planning and I am prepared for things to go wrong so that means it won't catch me off guard. I am prepared for good and bad!

I texted James about what we needed to sign and we both got that done very quick. And it feels really real now and it's just very cool.

Alexi would give me a task! I was to create a Google form with camp accreditation questions so that the answering of them can be done collaboratively. It was nice to have something to do and it honestly didn't take to long.

And once it was done I was able to read for a while. I got a new book about the endemic yellow fever of 1793 in Philadelphia. It's very enjoyable so far but also very sad. It's for sure in the same vein as my dear america books but not in journal form. I read that for a while. Chatted with Elizabeth and Sarah. And soon Alexi and Heather were going to have a meeting and we all decided it was time for us to go home.

It was raining very very hard and I am glad I left when I did because it only got worse. Elizabeth teased me for leaving 3 minutes before 2 when I had said I didn't want to be the first to leave. But it would get very bad very quick. I wanted to be off the highway and I wanted to be home. It was scary. The wind was pushing my car around and I desperately wanted to be away from any trucks because they were getting blown about too. It was terrible. I did my best to stay away from other cars because there was so much rain off the back of other cars it was making it hard to see.

As I was getting off the highway I got a missed call and then immediately they called back so I guessed this was a real call. So once I was home and inside and not rained on I called it back. It was the police department. And they were like who are you calling? I'm like they didn't leave a voicemail but I have a case number? And they were able to transfer me but for some reason they were just very snippy. I finally got a detective and he wants me to come in on Thursday. I have never been in a police department before. Scary. He asked could I come in the afternoon and I said yes. 3? And he was like later. Okay how about 4? No. Then he goes how about 6? And I'm like yes that's fine but thinking that is absolutely not the afternoon. That is the evening. But it's fine. I'll go and tell them what I saw and try my best to help. Even if it makes me very nervous. Being in a police station is not my idea of a good time!

When I got off the phone me and James laughed about the call and they told me about their day. They did a lot of packing and took all the art off their office walls and it made me so sad! Blank walls make me feel so sad. But it has to happen so we can move to our new place. Which means I will have to do it in the other rooms. So upsetting. But it is for the best. Because we will have a whole new place to decorate!

We would get in bed and read together. Eventually moving to watching TikToks together. James made me a little frozen microwave pizza for dinner. And we have just had a soft night.

I took a bath. And washed my hair. And we have been listening to the rain and watching videos. I feel a little wheezy but I'm in a better head space. And I think I'm going to go play with some of my jewelery and get ready for tomorrow. I hope it's a good day at work. And I hope you all have a really nice night. Sleep well everyone. Take care of yourselves.

[dukeofriven]

MORE IMPORTANT STARDEW VALLEY QUESTIONS

1) Who paid the land taxes all those years the farm was sitting fallow? Lewis doesn’t seem to type to just go ‘our struggling community can coast just fine without the tax revenue of the area’s single largest landowner whose functional abandonment is driving down local property values.’ And for all you killjoysmartasses out there going ‘uh you don’t pay land taxes in SV’—yeah you do. Lewis garnishes them out of any monies made via the shipping bin. Obviously.  2) At what point in the will process - either during the writing or reading - did the estate lawyer go ‘so you want me to transfer all title to your property, free of lien and encumbrance, but not tell the inheritor until they open an envelope at any future date and time?’ There’s got to be a third page in that letter from Broadshirt, Broadshirt, and McCormick saying ‘greetings, new client. Here’s how to get your new farm out of escrow also please contact us urgently viz. decades of unpaid back taxes that may have accumulated.’ Perhaps the reason the farm is so dilapidated is less to do with neglect and more that the lawyers had to sell-off all the transferable assets in order to keep the estate solvent. 3) What must have it been like for the Farmer’s parents to open the door one day and see a Santa standing there. ‘Hey there family it’s me grandpa I’m here to bond with my grandchild and would also love it you could put me up in the living room on a weirdly angled bed so I can die. The farm? Eh, I’m sure the fairies will look after it.’ LATER, AT THE LAWYER’S OFFICE DAD: “Sob! I loved my father so much, I’m going to do my best to manage his farm now that he’s left it to me.” LAWYER, AWKWARDLY NUDGING A SEALED ENVELOPE UNDER A FOLDER; “Well... about that...”

[mariacallous]

A 76-year-old retired former engineer was found dead in his apartment in Russia’s Leningrad region on Thursday, the day after he tried to set the local draft office on fire.

Telegram news channels report the retiree had committed suicide after being victimized by scam artists, who convinced him to sell his apartment. This fits a pattern of recent reports from elderly Russians, who say they were persuaded to sell their real estate and put the proceeds in escrow. Scam artists then told them to set fire to local draft offices if they wanted to have their funds released.

On August 2, the victim brought some Molotov cocktails to a local draft office, where he spent over a minute trying to get a spark, finally lighting the grass under his feet. The National Guardsmen inside the draft office came out, stomped out the feeble flames, and detained the perpetrator.

The next day, the authorities opened a formal arson case. Shortly afterwards, the victim’s brother found him hung in the apartment he no longer owned.

Since late July, at least 28 Russian draft offices were set on fire. Those detained for attempted arson often describe having been manipulated by scam artists.

[businesslawyersinvietnam]

P2P Lending – The new Form of Credit Extension in Financial Technology Era

Peer to Peer Lending (P2P) has becoming more popular in many countries. This form first appeared in the UK since 2005, then succeeded in the US and China markets. By 2017, P2P lending businesses start to appear in Vietnam in different forms.

                             Banking and dispute lawyers in Vietnam

Three subject matters in P2P lending relation include: investor (or lender), intermediary company (P2P Lending Company) and borrower. P2P Lending utilizes digital technology platform connecting lenders and borrowers directly, cutting out the credit institution as the middleman. Accordingly, P2P Lending Company provides online services (website, app) that match lenders with borrowers. The idea is that, all borrowing, debt payment (principal and interest) between the borrowers and lenders are recorded and stored by the online transaction platform. This method is completely different from the traditional loan form by increasing the ability to successfully connect lenders and borrower through online platforms along with advanced financial technology systems.

The relationship between lenders and borrowers is civil relation, therefore, the lending or payment is based on the regulations of Vietnam Civil Code. According to P2P Lending Company, the nature of P2P Lending Company is a broker between lenders and borrowers through technology. However, under Article 8.2 of Law on Credit Institutions 2010: “Individuals and organizations which is not credit institutions are prohibited from conducting banking operations, excepting escrow, purchase and sale of securities by securities companies”. Therefore, it is challenging for stakeholders to clearly define the boundary services could extend under P2P mode without violation of the laws.

In a good term, P2P lending creates a new way for approaching the loans when borrowers are not satisfied for the conditions of conventional bank loans. The advantages of P2P lending in Vietnam are the simplification of procedures, fast approval for loans, easy online transaction, in comparison to borrowing from banks which requires a complex and strict examination process... Since P2P Lending Company offers these services online, it is expected it can operate with lower overhead and provide the service at a cheaper price than traditional financial institutions. If applying appropriately, P2P lending could be a solution to minimize other illegal lending services in Vietnam.

The Vietnam government has assigned The State Bank to build a legal framework for credit extension activities under the form of P2P Lending to promote the positive aspects of this service. At ANT Lawyers, a law firm in Vietnam, with offices in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, we have technology, business and IP lawyers whom are familiar with development of digital transformation in Vietnam that could bring new ways of doing business leveraging on high rate of Vietnam smartphone users to prove a better services to high tech start-up clients entering Vietnam market.

Source ANTLawyers: https://antlawyers.vn/library/p2p-lending-the-new-form-of-credit-extension-in-financial-technology-era.html