Chapter 5: What My Signature Was Worth
I read the signature three times.
It looked like mine.
The loop on the B, the way the r trailed.
Someone had studied it.
"Who gave you this?" I asked.
"A man named Gerald Fitch.
He was your father's accountant for years — until your father let him go eighteen months ago.
Gerald didn't take it well." Diane folded her hands on the table.
"He reached out to me because he knew about you.
He thought you deserved to know."
"Why didn't he go to the police?"
"He said he didn't have enough on his own.
He had copies of documents, but documents can be explained away.
He needed someone who was directly affected." She looked at me steadily.
"That's you."
I closed the folder.
"This could be fabricated.
Fitch could have a grudge."
"He could," she said.
"That's why I didn't come to you with just this."
She reached into her bag again and set a small USB drive on the table.
"Gerald recorded a conversation.
Your father, eighteen months ago, explaining to someone — Gerald believes it was a loan broker — how the account structure worked.
How your income was being used.
How your name on the mortgage protected the family's borrowing position."
My coffee had gone cold.
I hadn't touched it in ten minutes.
"He talks about me?"
"By name.
Several times."
I picked up the drive.
It was lighter than it should have been for what it contained.
"Why are you doing this?" I said.
"You don't know me."
Diane was quiet for a moment.
Outside, snow ticked against the window.
"I've thought about you every day for twenty-five years," she said.
"I was seventeen.
I wasn't able to fight for you then.
I'm able to now."
I didn't say anything.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," she said.
"I'm not asking you for anything.
I just — I couldn't watch them do this to you and stay quiet."
The folder sat between us on the table.
My forged name on a mortgage document.
A USB drive with my father's voice on it.
A woman with my hands who had been circling my life for two years trying to find the right moment.
"I need a lawyer," I said.
"I have one in mind.
She's good.
She handles financial fraud." Diane paused.
"Her name is Patricia Holt.
I can call her tonight if you want."
"It's Christmas Eve."
"She told me to call whenever."
I looked at the folder again.
Then at Diane.
"Make the call," I said.
She already had her phone out.
While she stepped away from the table to dial, I opened the folder again and looked at my signature.
Someone in that house had practiced writing my name.
Had sat somewhere — at the kitchen table, at Dad's desk — and copied the shape of it until it was good enough to put on a legal document.
Mason's face came back to me.
The way he had gone still when Dad said Diane's name.
Not surprised.
Just caught.
Diane returned to the table.
"Patricia can meet us tomorrow morning.
Nine o'clock."
"Tomorrow is Christmas."
"She said she doesn't mind."
I nodded slowly.
"There's one more thing," Diane said.
She sat back down and looked at me carefully.
"Gerald said there's a second document.
A beneficiary change on a life insurance policy.
Your grandfather's.
It was changed four years ago." She paused.
"You were the original beneficiary."
The candle on the table between us guttered in a draft from the door.
May you like
"How much?" I said.
"Two hundred and forty thousand dollars."
