Chapter 9 - The Price of Not Looking
I spent the morning in my office, staring at the signature pages I'd approved. They weren't forged. Mine was genuine. The pages referred to a real credit facility, but the exhibits describing the collateral had been replaced after I signed. The version in our files showed renovation equipment. The copy the lender had received listed an interest in Mom's condo.
"You didn't check the final package?" my controller, Ruth, asked.
"Adam said he'd handle it."
She didn't soften her expression. "Then you need to tell the lender that, in writing, before someone else tells a different story."
I called the bank's fraud department, filed an internal incident report, and gave Chen the original email trail. For the first time in my adult life, I admitted that trusting a rich man's handshake was not the same as doing my job.
That afternoon, Sofia called, whispering. "Dad, there's a woman outside my apartment. She says she's from a senior placement service. Grandma never called one."
I told her not to open the door. The woman slid a brochure underneath and said she had an appointment to escort Elena to a private facility. Sofia called building security and Chen. On the hallway camera, the visitor wore a badge printed with an agency name that didn't appear in any state provider directory Sofia could find.
Mom sat beside the window listening. "Vanessa told me they'd come for me if I kept refusing. I thought she was joking."
Police took the visitor's information and asked her to leave. She insisted that Adam Vale had provided a signed release authorizing transport. Priya demanded a copy of it.
There, on the bottom of the second page, was Mom's signature. Same loops. Same trembling final stroke. Elena stared at it a long time.
"That's my handwriting," she said. "But I didn't sign this paper."
She had signed something, though. She remembered Vanessa bringing her a grocery delivery form on a clipboard while she wore her reading glasses on a chain. Beneath the top page, she'd felt another sheet shift.
May you like
Sofia held out her own phone. "I filmed that day, Grandma."
In the video, Vanessa lifted the grocery form and revealed an entirely different document underneath.
