Chapter 6: What Daniel Signed
The will had been notarized eleven months ago.
Eleven months.
We had been married for three years.
I had been his wife for three years, and eleven months ago — quietly, without a word — Daniel had signed a new will that left everything to his mother.
I read the document twice at Ruth's office that evening.
Then I set it down on her desk and looked at the wall behind her.
"Is it valid?" I asked.
"It was properly executed under state law at the time of signing.
Gerald Pitts notarized it, but a will only requires a notary for certain states — in this case, the witnesses are the issue." Ruth tapped the signature page.
"The two witnesses listed are a Marcus Webb and a Donna Pitts."
"Pitts," I said.
"Gerald's wife." Ruth's voice was even.
"So we have a notary with a complaint history, his own wife as a witness, and a second witness I haven't located yet.
It's not automatically invalid, but it's fragile.
And it was never disclosed to you."
"He didn't have to disclose it."
"No.
But it tells us something about the timeline." She folded her hands.
"Eleven months ago, Daniel executes a will cutting you out entirely.
Three weeks ago, your apartment is transferred to his mother using a forged signature.
You come home to find her already moved in." She looked at me directly.
"Claire, I have to ask you something and I need you to answer honestly."
"Go ahead."
"In the past year, has Daniel asked you to sign anything?
Anything at all — financial documents, insurance forms, anything you may have signed without reading closely?"
I sat very still.
There had been something.
Eight months ago.
Daniel had brought home a stack of papers and said they were refinancing documents for his car loan.
He'd asked me to sign two pages as a co-signer witness.
I had been cooking dinner.
I had signed without reading them.
I told Ruth.
She wrote it down without changing her expression.
"I'll need to know what those documents actually were," she said.
I nodded.
My hands were in my lap.
I was pressing them together without realizing it.
"Ruth," I said.
"How long has he been planning this?"
She didn't answer right away.
That was its own kind of answer.
"I think," she said carefully, "that we should find out who Gerald Pitts is to this family before we assume Daniel is the one who started it."
"You think Lorraine drove this."
"I think Lorraine has been managing her son for a very long time." Ruth closed the folder.
"And I think she found a moment — your six-week absence — and she used it."
I thought about Daniel's face on our wedding day.
The way he'd looked at me.
I had believed that look completely.
"Does he love her more than he loves me?" I said.
It wasn't really a question for Ruth.
But she answered it anyway.
"I think," she said quietly, "that some people never stop being their mother's child, no matter who else they marry."
I picked up my bag.
"I'm going back to the hotel," I said.
"Claire." Ruth stood.
"The forensic report comes tomorrow morning.
When it confirms the forgery — and it will — we move immediately.
I'll have an emergency hearing scheduled before noon."
"And Daniel?"
"He'll be served notice as a party to the fraud." She paused.
"He'll know by tomorrow afternoon that this is no longer a family disagreement."
I walked to the door.
"Good," I said.
Outside, the evening air was sharp and cold.
I pulled my coat tighter and started walking.
My phone rang.
Daniel again.
I let it ring out.
Then it rang a second time.
Same number.
Then a third.
On the fourth call, I answered.
"Claire." His voice was different.
Tighter.
"Mom just called me.
She said a woman came to the building today asking questions about Gerald Pitts."
I kept walking.
"Did she," I said.
"Who did you send there?
What are you doing?"
"I'm handling a problem," I said.
"Isn't that what you told your mother?
That you'd handled a problem?"
A long silence.
"Claire, if you do something that damages my mother—"
"Daniel." I stopped walking.
"Your mother is living in my apartment on a forged deed.
You signed a will eleven months ago that cuts me out of your estate entirely.
And you used a fraudulent notary to do both." My voice was steady.
Completely steady.
"I'm not doing anything to your mother.
I'm doing something for myself."
I heard him breathe.
"We can still fix this," he said.
"If you just come home and we talk—"
"The time for talking," I said, "was before you forged my name."
I hung up.
May you like
Somewhere above me, in a building two blocks away, a light was on in the window of Unit 12B.
Tomorrow, everything would change.
