Chapter 3: What Was Signed Before He Died
Victoria stared at the document for a long time without touching it.
The champagne sat untouched on her tray table.
The flight attendant who had been hovering near her seat had quietly stepped back.
"Pick it up," I said.
"I don't need to pick it up." Her voice was steady, but her jaw was tight.
"Whatever that is, my lawyer will deal with it."
"Your lawyer's name is on it, Victoria.
Third line from the top."
Her eyes dropped before she could stop them.
She picked it up.
I watched her read.
I watched the moment she reached the date — three days before my father passed — because her breathing changed.
A small thing.
But I had been watching Victoria for eleven years.
I knew every small thing.
"This is a forgery," she said.
"It isn't."
"My father's signature was witnessed by two board members and a notary public.
The original is held by AeroVance's legal counsel.
This is a copy.
The original has already been submitted to the court."
Victoria set the document down on the armrest very carefully, like it might burn her.
"What court?"
"The probate court that reopened your father's estate three weeks ago."
Her head came up.
"Reopened — on what grounds?"
"Fraud," I said.
"Specifically, the allegation that the trust amendment your father signed nine days before he passed — the one that removed me from the controlling interest — was signed under duress.
And that the witness signatures on that amendment were obtained after the fact."
The color left her face completely.
"That is a serious accusation, Alex."
"Yes," I said.
"It is."
She straightened in her seat.
The old composure came back — I had seen her do it a hundred times at dinner tables, at board meetings, at my father's bedside.
Victoria could reassemble herself faster than anyone I had ever met.
"You have nothing," she said.
"You were estranged from your father for the last two years of his life.
Everyone knows that.
You barely visited.
You certainly weren't present when any documents were signed."
"I wasn't present," I agreed.
"But someone else was."
I took out my phone and turned the screen toward her.
It was a photograph.
A hospital room.
My father in the bed, thinner than I had ever seen him.
And standing beside him, not at the signing — but three hours before it — was a man I recognized immediately.
Victoria's lawyer.
Alone with my father.
No family present.
No medical staff in the frame.
"That was taken by the hospital's corridor camera," I said.
"The timestamp is in the corner."
Victoria looked at the photograph for exactly four seconds.
Then she looked away.
"I want to speak to my lawyer."
"You can call him when we land." I put the phone back in my pocket.
"But I think you already know what he's going to tell you."
She said nothing.
Captain Reeves appeared at the front of the cabin and caught my eye.
A small nod.
I nodded back.
The engines began to spool up again.
Victoria turned to the window.
Outside, the tarmac was moving slowly past.
"You think you've won something," she said quietly.
"You haven't.
There are people involved in this that you don't know about.
People with far more at stake than I have."
I looked at the side of her face.
"Tell me their names," I said.
She didn't answer.
May you like
The plane lifted off the ground, and Victoria Vance said nothing else for the next four hours.
But her hands, folded in her lap, were shaking.
