Chapter 5: The Signature That Lied
Magistrate Ward made one call.
Twenty minutes later, station security sent footage to Reeves’s tablet.
A hooded figure opened Raymond’s locker at 4:36 a.m.
and removed a laptop bag.
Victoria leaned closer.
“Pause it.”
Reeves froze the image.
“That’s not Raymond,” Harrison said.
“No,” Victoria replied.
“It’s me.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Raymond’s voice softened.
“Victoria, don’t say another word.”
She pressed both hands against her mouth.
“You told me the bag contained tax records.”
“And that’s all you know.”
“You said your business partner would collect it.”
Raymond reached for her.
“Come home with me.
We’ll get you a lawyer.”
She stepped behind me.
“I am home.”
His expression hardened.
“Without me, you have nothing.”
“I have the truth.”
Raymond laughed.
“The truth is that Claire let her husband leave on a mission she knew was compromised.”
The room went still.
I took one step toward him.
“How do you know the mission was compromised?”
He blinked.
Reeves lowered the tablet.
“That detail has never been released.”
“I guessed.”
“You used the exact term from Marcus’s final report,” I said.
Raymond backed toward the kitchen.
“Maybe Marcus told me.”
“Marcus didn’t trust you enough to tell you where he bought coffee.”
My father slammed his palm onto the counter.
“Enough.
Raymond has helped this family for years.”
“He charged you rent in a house he didn’t own,” I said.
“He handled everything after Marcus disappeared.”
“Because you handed him the keys.”
Harrison’s jaw shook.
“You were gone.”
“I was identifying Marcus at Dover.”
The words stopped him.
Eleanor reached for me.
“Claire—”
I stepped back.
“You made me sleep in the garage hours after his funer@l.”
My mother’s hand fell.
Raymond pointed toward the soldiers.
“Look at this circus.
Claire concealed her rank, Marcus concealed his work, and now they expect us to worship them.”
“No,” Victoria said.
“She expected us to treat her like a human being.”
He turned on her.
“You called her grief exhausting.”
Victoria flinched as if his words had struck her.
“I did,” she whispered.
The baby shifted painfully.
My knees weakened, and Reeves pulled out a chair.
Eleanor came forward.
“Sit down.”
“I don’t need—”
“Claire, please.” Her voice broke.
“You can hate me after you sit.”
I lowered myself into the chair.
Eleanor knelt and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders—the same blanket she had left folded on the couch while sending me into the garage.
Victoria crouched beside me.
“I put the bag in the locker,” she said.
“But I kept this.”
She removed a small memory card from beneath her wedding ring.
“Raymond dropped it while packing the laptop.
He didn’t see me pick it up.”
Raymond lunged.
Victoria closed her fist, and Reeves drove Raymond back against the counter.
“You ungrateful fool!” Raymond shouted.
“Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yes,” Victoria said.
“For once, I do.”
Reeves sealed the card in another evidence pouch.
Raymond straightened his collar.
“You can inspect it, but you’ll find nothing connected to me.”
“Then why did you reach for it?” I asked.
Ward’s phone rang.
She listened, thanked the caller, and faced us.
“The notary named on the property transfer has been located.”
Raymond’s color faded.
Ward continued.
“She says she never witnessed Marcus’s signature.”
Harrison stared at the forged document in his hands.
“You told me it was legal.”
“It is legal,” Raymond insisted.
“She’s confused.”
“She also kept her official seal after reporting it stolen,” Ward said.
“The seal on your document is counterfeit.”
My father placed the paper on the counter as if it had burned him.
Raymond pulled out his phone.
“I’m calling my attorney.”
“Do that,” Reeves said.
Raymond tapped the screen, but instead of making a call, he opened a remote-access application.
The sealed memory card on the counter gave a tiny red flash.
Reeves snatched Raymond’s phone away.
A warning appeared on its screen:
May you like
REMOTE ERASE: 62% COMPLETE.
Then the memory card’s red light went dark.
