Chapter 12 - A Signature from the Past
The second guarantee used a signature that looked more convincing than the first. It also included my old mailing address, the one I'd used before buying my house.
That was the clue.
I hadn't lived there for five years. Dad had kept copies of old paperwork from the bank account he used to access when I was younger. He'd also insisted on reviewing the mortgage documents for my first house, calling it fatherly advice.
Nora sent the guarantees to a document examiner. She wasn't promising a miracle from handwriting analysis. But the source of the copied information mattered, and the venue had agreed to provide its email trail.
The trail showed Dad forwarding a scanned authorization from his personal email. The attachment had been created before anyone at the venue saw my original card.
On the afternoon of the rehearsal, Mom had told the events director I was paying, but “very private about money.” The staff were instructed not to mention billing in front of me.
I felt sick reading that sentence. They hadn't just stolen my name. They'd turned my reputation for independence into a reason not to ask for my consent.
Thatcher helped by sending Nora the budget spreadsheets Sloan had shared during wedding planning. Several invoices listed my name under “family contribution,” although I had never seen them.
“My parents said you were helping,” he told me. “I didn't realize helping meant someone invented your permission.”
At the bottom of one spreadsheet was a comment from Dad: “Final balance secure once M is out of the conversation.”
M was me.
May you like
I thought about the timing of the rehearsal, the staircase, and how quickly my father had seized my bag after I fell. No one had guaranteed I'd be injured. But they had planned for me to be distracted and gone.
Then Nora found another email. It was from Mom, sent the morning of the rehearsal: “Make sure Bellamy records the entrance. We may need proof Merritt caused trouble.”
