Chương 5
"Who?"
"I don't know."
Her eyes moved toward the hallway.
"But I know he is preparing."
My phone vibrated.
I looked down.
A message from Rachel appeared.
Claire, do not react until we talk.
My heart started beating faster.
"What is it?" Vanessa asked.
I turned the phone around.
Rachel had sent another message.
A photograph was attached.
It was a picture of a document.
A document with my signature on it.
I stared at the screen.
The signature was mine.
But I had never seen the paper before.
The signature was mine.
But I had never seen the paper before.
My fingers went cold around the phone.
For a moment, the noise of the hotel disappeared.
The conversations around us.
The clinking of glasses.
The footsteps crossing the marble floor.
Everything became distant.
"What is it?" Vanessa asked again.
I looked at her.
"Apparently, I signed something."
Her expression changed.
"What?"
I turned the screen toward her.
She leaned closer but did not touch the phone.
"I have never seen that."
"Neither have I."
The fear in her face was immediate.
Not the fear of being caught.
The fear of realizing something was bigger than she thought.
Rachel called seconds later.
I answered.
"Tell me this is not what it looks like."
There was a pause.
That was the worst possible response.
"Claire."
"Rachel."
"I need you to come back to the office."
"What is the document?"
"I don't know yet."
"You sent me a picture of my signature."
"I sent you a picture because I did not want to discuss this over the phone."
My jaw tightened.
"Rachel."
She lowered her voice.
"Someone filed paperwork three months ago transferring partial control of several investment accounts connected to your marital assets."
I looked at Vanessa.
"With my signature?"
"Yes."
"I did not sign anything."
"I believe you."
The answer came quickly.
"Then why are you worried?"
"Because believing you and proving it are two different things."
I closed my eyes.
That was the sentence everyone kept giving me.
The truth was not enough.
The truth needed evidence.
The truth needed dates.
The truth needed signatures, records, witnesses, and people willing to admit what happened.
After I ended the call, Vanessa sat back.
"I think I know what happened."
I looked at her.
"Do you?"
She hesitated.
"Grant always talked about protecting himself."
"Meaning?"
"He said your father would destroy him if you ever left."
I almost laughed.
"He was afraid of my father?"
"Yes."
That was strange.
Because Grant had spent years acting like Arthur Vance was an old man living in the past.
"He told me Arthur Vance would take everything from him."
"He was worried about losing control."
Vanessa looked at the envelope between us.
"He wasn't building a future."
She swallowed.
"He was building an exit."
I hated how much sense it made.
The documents.
The accounts.
The secret payments.
Grant had not planned for a divorce.
He had planned for a war.
When I returned to my father's house, the atmosphere had changed.
Nobody said anything immediately.
That was how I knew something was wrong.
People became quieter when they were trying not to make a bad situation worse.
Rachel was waiting in the library with several folders open.
My father stood near the window.
He looked older than he had that morning.
"What happened?" I asked.
Rachel pushed a document toward me.
"We found the original filing."
I looked at the page.
The signature was mine.
The date was six months earlier.
"I was in Chicago that week."
Rachel nodded.
"We checked."
"And?"
"You were at a conference."
I looked at my father.
"I was with you."
He nodded.
"I remember."
That should have comforted me.
Instead, it made everything feel more dangerous.
Someone had used my identity while I was surrounded by people who could confirm I was somewhere else.
"How?"
Rachel leaned forward.
"We are investigating."
"I don't want investigating."
My voice rose.
"I want to know how someone can put my name on a document and change my life."
Nobody answered.
Because nobody had an answer yet.
Later that evening, I sat alone in the kitchen.
Not the library.
Not the office.
The kitchen.
It was the only room in the house that still felt normal.
My father had always hated cooking.
My mother loved it.
She used to say a kitchen showed what kind of person someone was.
Not because of the food.
Because people became honest when they were tired, hungry, and standing around a counter.
I opened a drawer looking for a spoon.
Inside was an old wooden recipe card.
My mother's handwriting covered the front.
I stood there reading the same recipe I had seen a hundred times.
Not because I cared about the ingredients.
Because for a few seconds, I was twenty years old again.
My mother was alive.
My father was younger.
My biggest problem was deciding whether I wanted to move across the country after college.
Then my phone rang.
I almost ignored it.
I answered when I saw the name.
Grant.
"What?"
His breathing was uneven.
"Claire, where are you?"
"You don't get to ask me that."
"Please."
The word sounded unfamiliar coming from him.
"What happened?"
"They are trying to destroy me."
I stared at the kitchen counter.
"Who is they?"
"My father?"
"No."
"Then who?"
"Your father."
I felt my expression change.
"Grant."
"Claire, you don't understand what he is doing."
I almost ended the call.
Then I stopped.
Because something about his voice bothered me.
Not because I felt sorry for him.
Because he sounded genuinely afraid.
"What did my father do?"
"He froze accounts."
"Accounts that might belong to me."
"You don't know that."
"I know more than you think."
The anger returned.
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me."
Silence.
Again.
That silence was becoming his signature.
"You can't."
"Claire."
"No."
May you like
I stood up.
"You keep saying you can explain, but every time I ask a question, you disappear."
