Chapter 3: The Third Signature
Detective Reyes took the note from me with a gloved hand.
His partner, a younger woman named Detective Holt, was already on her phone before he'd finished reading it.
"We need the visitor log for this ward," Holt said into the phone.
"Last forty-eight hours.
All of it."
Reyes set the note inside a clear evidence bag and looked at me steadily.
"Miss Rios, who else knew you were here?
Besides your parents."
I thought carefully.
"My lawyer, Grace Tanner.
Don Ernesto, the man who found me.
And—" I stopped.
"And?"
"My parents' estate manager.
A man named Victor Aldridge.
He's worked for my father for eleven years."
Reyes wrote the name down without looking up.
"What does Victor Aldridge do, exactly?"
"Everything my father doesn't want his name on."
Holt came back in.
"Visitor log shows one non-medical visitor on day four.
Signed in as a family friend.
Name on the log: V.
Aldridge."
The room felt smaller suddenly.
"He walked right past the nurses' station," I said.
"He knew which floor I was on.
He knew which room."
"Your parents told him," Reyes said.
It wasn't a question.
"They sent him to deliver that note personally.
They wanted me to know it came from someone with access.
Someone who could get close."
Holt pulled a chair to the side of my bed and sat down.
"Daniela, I need you to think carefully.
The note mentions Marco.
When did you last speak to your brother?"
"Three weeks before that night.
He called me from his apartment in Boston.
He sounded — off.
Distracted.
He said Dad had asked him to come home for a few days to 'go over some paperwork.'"
"Did he go?"
"I don't know.
He stopped answering after that."
Holt and Reyes exchanged a look I wasn't supposed to catch.
"What?" I said.
Reyes leaned forward.
"We ran a preliminary check this morning on the trust accounts you flagged.
One of the forged signatures — the one attributed to your brother — was notarized six weeks ago by a notary whose license was suspended last year."
"That's not possible.
A suspended notary can't—"
"No," Reyes said.
"They can't.
Which means someone paid them to do it anyway.
And someone else knew the license was suspended and used that notary specifically."
"Because a suspended license makes the document fraudulent on its face," I said slowly.
"Which means the whole transfer is void."
"If we can prove who arranged it, yes."
I looked at the evidence bag on the tray table.
Victor Aldridge's handwriting.
My father's plan.
My mother's laughter on a phone screen.
"Victor arranged it," I said.
"He's been my father's fixer for over a decade.
He knows every attorney, every notary, every accountant my father has ever used.
He would know exactly which ones could be bought."
Holt was writing fast.
"We're going to need you to give us every name you can remember.
Anyone connected to your father's financial dealings."
"I can do that." I shifted against the pillow and felt the pull of the bandaging around my ribs.
"But first I need to know Marco is safe."
Reyes stood.
"We're working on locating him."
"That's not good enough." My voice came out harder than I expected.
"That note said *we still have Marco.* That's not a figure of speech.
Victor Aldridge walked into this hospital to deliver a threat in person.
If my parents are willing to do what they did to me, what do you think they're willing to do to a twenty-eight-year-old who doesn't even know what's happening?"
Neither detective answered immediately.
"Find my brother," I said.
"Everything else can wait."
Holt closed her notebook.
"We'll have a location check on Marco within the hour."
They left.
The door swung shut behind them.
I stared at the ceiling and thought about the last time Marco had called me.
The way he'd said *I think Dad wants something* in a voice that tried to sound casual and didn't quite make it.
I should have driven to Boston that same night.
A knock at the door.
A nurse leaned in — not the one who'd given me the note.
"Ms.
Rios?
There's a woman asking for you at the nurses' station.
She says she's your lawyer."
Grace.
I exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
"Send her in."
Grace Tanner walked through the door carrying a leather briefcase and wearing the expression she reserved for situations that were already serious and getting worse.
She was sixty-one, sharp-eyed, and had been my grandfather's attorney before she was mine.
She set the briefcase on the chair, looked at my face, and said nothing for a moment.
"How bad?" she finally asked.
"They forged Marco's signature too.
Victor Aldridge delivered a threat to this room in person.
And my brother hasn't been reachable for three weeks."
Grace sat down.
She opened the briefcase and pulled out a single sheet of paper.
She placed it on the tray table facing me.
It was a wire transfer confirmation.
Dated four days ago.
Sender: Rios Family Trust.
Recipient: an LLC I didn't recognize.
Amount: four point three million dollars.
"That went out two days after you were admitted," Grace said.
"While you were unconscious."
They hadn't waited.
They'd moved the money while I was lying in a hospital bed unable to stop them.
"Can it be reversed?" I asked.
Grace looked at me steadily.
"That depends entirely on what we find inside that LLC."
She reached into the briefcase again and placed a second document beside the first.
"Because the registered agent for that LLC," she said, "is not your father."
May you like
I looked at the name on the page.
It was mine.
