Chapter 8: Wednesday
I called Patricia Howe from a gas station two blocks from the house.
It was Tuesday evening.
I had told Gertrude I needed to pick up a personal item.
She had watched me take the car keys from the hook by the door with an expression I couldn't fully read.
"The tray," I said when Patricia answered.
"Gertrude brought Garrett a breakfast tray yesterday morning.
She's never done that before.
He didn't eat from it."
A pause.
"Did you keep any of it?"
"I took a sample from the cup.
It's in a sealed bag in my room."
"Good.
Bring it Wednesday.
The analyst can run it alongside the signature review." Another pause.
"Rebecca, I need to ask you something directly."
"Go ahead."
"Are you safe in that house?"
I looked at the gas station lights reflected in the car window.
"So far," I said.
"If that changes at any point, you leave.
You don't wait for instructions from me.
You take Garrett if you can, you leave if you can't, and you call me from wherever you are."
"Understood."
"Wednesday.
Ten o'clock.
Come the same way you came before."
I drove back to the house.
Wednesday morning moved like something held underwater.
Douglas left at nine for what he said was a meeting downtown.
Gertrude was on the phone in the study.
Evelyn sat in the garden with her tea, her back to the house, very still.
I got Garrett into the car at nine forty.
Patricia's office was quieter than the first visit.
The forensic analyst, a man named Gerald, was already there — fifties, methodical, with the manner of someone who had spent a career being precise in rooms where precision mattered.
He took the sealed sample without comment and set it aside.
Then he opened a folder containing two documents side by side.
"This is the original signature from a company document dated fourteen months before the accident," he said, pointing to the left page.
"And this is the signature on the restructuring agreement."
Garrett leaned forward.
The two signatures were similar.
But Gerald placed a magnifying lens over the restructuring signature and pointed to the pressure lines, the lift point on the letter G, the trailing curve of the final letter.
"The original signature shows natural hand movement — slight variation in pressure, organic rhythm.
The restructuring signature is too consistent.
The pressure is even throughout in a way that doesn't occur in natural handwriting." He set the lens down.
"This signature was traced."
The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
"Traced," Garrett said.
"From a photocopied original, most likely.
The ink behavior is consistent with that method."
Patricia set her pen down.
"Gerald, can you prepare a formal report?"
"I can have it ready by Friday."
"We'll need it for a filing." She looked at Garrett.
"This, combined with the unauthorized medical notes, gives us grounds for an emergency injunction to freeze the ownership transfer pending a full investigation." She paused.
"Once we file, Douglas will know within hours."
Garrett straightened in his chair.
"File it," he said.
On the drive back, he was quiet until we turned onto the residential street.
"When this is done," he said, "I want to stand up in that house.
In front of all of them."
I didn't answer right away.
"You will," I said.
We pulled into the driveway.
Gertrude was standing at the front window.
May you like
She watched us come in without moving.
Her phone was already in her hand.
