Chương 13
I leaned back.
“Maybe it was already miserable.”
“No.”
Her answer came firmly.
“You were happy sometimes.”
I looked at her.
“Do not rewrite seven years because yesterday was terrible.”
I hated how much I needed that.
Barron had made pancakes on Sundays.
He called me from airports just to complain about coffee.
He once spent an entire night in the emergency veterinary clinic with my cat even though he was allergic to her.
He remembered my father’s birthday after my father died and sent my mother flowers without telling me.
Those things had happened too.
So had the slap.
So had the money.
So had the forged document.
Good memories did not cancel bad actions.
Bad actions did not erase the fact that I had loved the man committing them.
My phone rang at seven-fifteen.
Marissa.
I answered immediately.
She whispered, “Can you talk?”
“Yes.”
“I’m in my car.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s Bruno?”
“Home.”
Her breathing sounded uneven.
“He knows I sent you something.”
My mother moved closer.
“How?”
“He checked the laptop history.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“He got angry.”
“Marissa.”
“He didn’t touch me.”
I closed my eyes.
“Okay.”
“He just kept saying I don’t understand what I’m doing.”
“What are you doing?”
“I copied the rest.”
My heart began pounding.
“All seven?”
“Six.”
“You said there were seven.”
“There are seven names.”
“One agreement is missing.”
“Whose?”
“Dominic’s.”
That made sense.
Tony had said the documents appeared to be investor subscriptions.
Dominic might be the organizer, not an investor.
Marissa continued.
“I have six PDFs and the spreadsheet.”
“Can you email them?”
“I already did.”
My laptop chimed.
An email arrived with multiple attachments.
I did not open them.
“What did Bruno say about the signatures?”
“He says Barron told him everything was legitimate.”
“Does he believe that?”
“I don’t know what he believes anymore.”
She began crying quietly.
“I thought the twenty thousand saved us.”
I did not know what to say.
She kept talking.
“We’re behind on the house too.”
I looked at my mother.
“Bruno didn’t tell me that.”
“He doesn’t tell anyone anything until it becomes an emergency.”
That sounded familiar in a different way.
“Marissa, why did you send me the documents?”
She sniffed.
“Because I found my father’s name.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“On one of the agreements.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand.”
“Did he invest?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“He died two years ago.”
The room went completely still.
Marissa’s voice broke.
“And the signature is dated four months ago.”
Marissa’s crying stopped before mine started.
I sat there staring at the email notification while my mother reached over and took the phone from my hand.
“Marissa,” she said, “listen to me.”
There was a wet inhale on the other end.
“Do not argue with Bruno tonight.”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“I did not say you were.”
My mother’s voice was firm in the way it had been when I was a child and had done something stupid near traffic.
“Take whatever you need for the night, go somewhere you feel comfortable, and tell one person where you are.”
Marissa was quiet.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She handed the phone back.
Tony called less than ten minutes after I forwarded the email package.
This time there was no sarcasm in his voice.
“Do not contact Dominic.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not contact Barron about these documents.”
“I understand.”
“And tell Marissa not to alter, rename, annotate, or delete anything.”
“She has copies.”
“I want originals preserved if possible.”
“What happens now?”
“Tomorrow, we document what we have and determine which authorities and counsel need to see it.”
“That sounds very calm for a dead man signing an investment agreement.”
“It is calm because panic doesn’t authenticate a document.”
I closed my eyes.
“I hate that you make sense.”
“I get paid for it.”
My mother said, “Too much, probably.”
For once, Tony laughed.
The next morning, his office conference room became a place where my marriage was reduced to folders.
Bank statements in one stack.
Emails in another.
Screenshots.
The spreadsheet.
The investment agreements.
Photographs of my mother’s face.
The medical report.
The police incident report number.
Bruno’s messages.
Marissa arrived just after nine wearing yesterday’s clothes and carrying a laptop in a canvas grocery bag.
She looked ten years older than she had at Christmas.
Bruno was not with her.
“He’s furious,” she said.
“At you?” I asked.
“At everyone.”
She put the bag on the table.
“He says Dominic and Barron told him the paperwork was just administrative.”
Tony asked, “Did Bruno prepare any of it?”
“He entered names into the spreadsheet.”
My stomach tightened.
Marissa saw my face.
“He says he didn’t sign anything.”
“Do you believe him?”
She looked down.
“I believe he didn’t understand enough to be as scared as he should have been.”
That was not an answer, but it was the closest thing to one she had.
Tony had arranged for a forensic professional to preserve copies from the laptop before anyone started opening files.
The process was less dramatic than television would have suggested.
No instant revelation.
No magical recovered confession.
Mostly waiting, documentation, and careful questions.
By noon, one fact had become clearer.
The agreement bearing Marissa’s father’s name had been created months after his death.
Its metadata could not prove who physically typed the signature, but the file had been stored in a folder containing drafts associated with Easton Ridge.
My own agreement had gone through three versions.
The earliest contained my mother’s name.
The second replaced hers with mine.
The investment amount never changed.
Thirty-eight thousand dollars.
My mother stared at that screen for a long time.
“So I was first.”
Nobody answered immediately.
Tony finally said, “The document appears to have been changed.”
She nodded once.
Barron had not simply decided I was easier.
He had started with her.
May you like
When she resisted, he substituted me.
The slap no longer looked like an explosion that had begun over missing cash.
