Chapter 3 - The Signature
I barely slept.
At seven the next morning, I printed the lease in the hotel business center.
My fake signature looked almost right.
Almost.
Whoever had copied it knew the general shape, but they had missed the way I crossed the A in Aaron. They had also used my middle initial, something I almost never did.
At eight thirty, I was standing outside the office of Greg Mercer, a local attorney whose website said he handled consumer fraud, contracts, and family financial disputes.
He read the lease twice.
“You’re sure you didn’t sign this electronically?”
“I’m sure.”
“Did you authorize anyone to sign for you?”
“No.”
He tapped the page. “Then don’t contact the landlord yet.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever did this may have done more.”
That sentence chilled me.
Greg made me list every account, vehicle, card, loan, and contract connected to my family.
Halfway through, he stopped writing.
“Aaron, how much do you think you’ve given them in six years?”
“I don’t know. Maybe forty thousand.”
He looked at me.
“What?”
He turned his legal pad around.
His rough estimate was already over ninety thousand.
I stared at the number.
“That can’t be right.”
“You said twelve hundred a month some years, eight hundred others, plus the car, insurance, medical bills, and credit cards.”
I thought about every time Mom had said, “Just until next month.”
Greg leaned forward. “I want your full credit report.”
I pulled it up.
For a while, the room was silent.
Then Greg pointed at the screen.
“What’s this?”
A personal loan.
Opened fourteen months earlier.
Original balance: $24,000.
Current balance: $19,603.
Borrower: Aaron Daniel Cole.
I stopped breathing.
“I didn’t take that loan.”
Greg’s expression hardened.
“Then someone didn’t just forge your signature on a lease.”
He scrolled.
The mailing address on the loan was my parents’ house.
May you like
And listed as the emergency contact was my sister.
Melanie Cole.
