Chapter 18 - The Dead Man's Signature
Mark had watched his father's handwriting on birthday cards, school forms, and business letters for twenty years.
The signature on Pike's document looked genuine.
His stomach turned.
Pike called it a revocation, signed the week before Henry's fatal heart attack.
If valid, it would allow the family to reclaim the spring land and transfer it as private property.
"He changed his mind," Margarethe said from the witness stand. "He decided the family should come first."
Hannah shook her head.
"That isn't what he told me."
"He wasn't required to tell you everything."
The judge declined to lift the preservation order but scheduled an expedited evidentiary hearing.
Sloane's lawyers immediately threatened to enforce the eight-million-dollar lien against the estate's other assets.
It meant the mansion, the business holdings, and everything Mark had inherited might vanish even if the sale failed.
Mark found himself alone on the courthouse steps as rain began to fall.
Hannah joined him beneath the awning.
"You could settle," she said. "They'll offer you money to walk away."
"And Mill Creek?"
"I know."
They stood together in silence.
Then she noticed the notary seal on a photograph of Pike's exhibit.
"That's odd."
"What?"
"The seal has a state registration number in the newer format. I renewed my own notary license years ago. That numbering system didn't exist when Dad died."
Samir called a forensic document examiner and requested the notary registry.
By evening, the examiner confirmed that the ink and paper required further testing, but the registry told its own story.
The commission number belonged to a notary first licensed seven years after Henry's death.
Mark phoned Ellis with the discovery.
May you like
Before he finished speaking, a message arrived from Margarethe.
MEET ME AT THE WELL AT NINE. COME ALONE, OR YOU WILL NEVER HEAR WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER.
