Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN'S SIGNATURE
Rachel met me in the parking garage beneath her office with an ice pack and no patience for denial.
“You need a doctor.”
“I need to see the document.”
“You need both.”
Twenty minutes later, after a clinic photographed the swelling on my cheek, we sat in Rachel’s conference room. She pushed a copy across the table.
The forged transfer moved thirty-two percent of Vale-Cross Holdings from my family trust into a voting pool controlled by Nathan.
My signature was at the bottom.
So was my father’s.
Thomas Vale.
I stared until the letters blurred.
“He died in a charter crash off Maine,” I said.
“I know what the death certificate says.”
“Then how is his signature on a filing dated six months ago?”
Rachel opened another folder. “That’s not the worst part.”
The transfer became irrevocable on Friday.
My twenty-ninth birthday.
Under my grandmother’s trust, thirty percent of the family company would become mine outright at 9:00 a.m. that morning. If Nathan’s transfer stood, my new shares would automatically flow into his voting pool.
“He didn’t marry me for the company,” I whispered.
Rachel said nothing.
That silence hurt more than an answer.
My phone rang.
Nathan.
I declined it.
He called again.
Then Celeste sent a message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME.
Rachel read it over my shoulder. “She’s scared.”
“She was smiling.”
“People smile when they think they’re protected.”
“Protected by who?”
Rachel tapped my father’s signature.
“That’s what worries me.”
We requested an emergency injunction and ordered the store’s camera footage preserved. Then Rachel called the company’s outside counsel.
The lawyer went quiet when she mentioned the forged document.
Finally he said, “Rachel, you need to get Emma somewhere secure.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas Vale’s signature has appeared on more than one filing.”
“How many?”
A pause.
May you like
“Enough that someone has been pretending he never died.”
Then the line went dead.
