Chapter 7 - The Signature That Wasn't His
Richard had signed thousands of contracts. He knew his own hand. The signature on the guardianship agreement was close, but the final stroke of the R was wrong. Someone had copied it from an older document.
He called Elaine Porter, the family attorney, and asked her to come immediately. She reviewed the photograph, the transfer list, and Eleanor's letter. Her expression grew more serious with every page.
“This isn't a family misunderstanding,” she said. “If this form is being presented as valid, it's fraud. We need to preserve the original and all the records around it.”
“Can Victoria take Maya away?” Richard asked.
“Not based on this paper. But we should assume they may try to create an emergency before we can stop them.”
Elaine advised him not to confront Victoria alone. She asked the estate's security director, Omar, to preserve the hallway footage. The system kept backups even when the primary administrator requested deletions.
Omar returned with a clip from Tuesday night. At 12:14 a.m., Victoria walked down the corridor, looked both ways, and unlocked Maya's bedroom. Eleven minutes later, she emerged with a folder. At 12:32, she entered Eleanor's study and left empty-handed.
Richard watched it twice. Victoria had told him she rarely went into the study. She had also told him Maya was confused about the key.
Grace then admitted that Peter had asked her to sign a statement saying Maya was violent and unpredictable. He said it would help the girl get treatment. Grace refused, and Peter warned that she could lose her job if she made trouble.
Elaine told Richard that the footage alone would not prove the whole scheme, but it could corroborate Maya's account. She asked Omar to preserve the original files and access logs.
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A security alert flashed on Omar's tablet. Someone had just tried to access the camera archive using Richard's credentials.
The login came from Peter Vance's temporary office downstairs.
