Chapter 4 - The Forgery
I stared at my name until the letters stopped looking real.
"That's not my signature."
Ortiz held the page under the light. "It's close."
"It's copied."
The document appointed my mother sole emergency trustee over my father's assets and gave her authority to act on behalf of me, his only surviving son.
Dated eleven years ago.
I had been twenty-four then, half destroyed by grief, barely sleeping, signing whatever funeral and insurance papers my mother placed in front of me.
"She could have slipped it in," I said.
Briar shook her head. "There's more."
Another contraction hit. She breathed through it while I counted.
When it passed, she pointed toward a black flash drive inside the suitcase.
"That came from a storage unit in your father's name."
Ortiz frowned. "How did you access it?"
"I didn't. I found the key in an old desk at the estate. The storage manager opened the unit after I showed him proof Henry was my father-in-law and explained the legal issue. He gave me the suitcase but warned me the unit had been accessed recently."
"By whom?"
"He wouldn't say without a subpoena."
Ortiz bagged the flash drive.
A nurse entered. "Dr. Patel wants another ultrasound."
Briar squeezed my fingers.
"Go with Detective Ortiz."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Noah, your father may be alive tonight. If your mother knows we found him, she may move him."
I hated that she was right.
Colleen stepped closer. "I'll stay with her."
I looked at Briar.
"If anything changes—"
"I call you. I promise."
Ortiz and I reached the elevator before her phone rang.
She answered, listened, then swore quietly.
"What?"
"North Pines says Harrison Stone was transferred this afternoon."
"Transferred where?"
She looked at me.
"They won't say."
The elevator doors opened.
May you like
Inside stood my mother's attorney.
And in his hand was the exact same storage-unit key Briar had found.
