PART 9

At ten that morning, Daniel called me back.

“Claire, I need you to come to my office.”

My stomach tightened.

“What did you find?”

“I don’t want to discuss it over the phone.”

That was enough.

I drove straight there.

When I arrived, Daniel was waiting with another man.

He was in his sixties, thin, gray-haired, wearing glasses.

“This is Martin Ellis,” Daniel said.

Martin stood.

“Claire.”

“Hello.”

He shook my hand.

“I specialize in questioned documents.”

My mouth went dry.

“You looked at the photographs?”

“I did.”

“And?”

He exchanged a glance with Daniel.

“The signature appears highly suspicious.”

I sat down.

“Suspicious how?”

“The signature was likely traced or simulated.”

My chest tightened.

“So my father didn’t sign it.”

“Based on the image alone, I can’t say that with absolute certainty.”

“But you think it.”

“Yes.”

Daniel slid another document toward me.

“This is your father’s signature from a document executed shortly before his death.”

I looked at it.

Then at the trust amendment.

The differences were obvious once Martin pointed them out.

The slant.

The pressure.

The spacing.

The final stroke.

My father’s real signature had always ended with a sharp upward flick.

The forged one didn’t.

I whispered, “Who did this?”

Martin shook his head.

“I can’t tell you that.”

Daniel leaned forward.

“But I can tell you something else.”

He opened a folder.

“Your father’s original estate plan is different from the trust document Julian has been relying on.”

I frowned.

“How different?”

“Very.”

He slid a copy across the table.

I read it.

My father had left the lake house to me.

That part I knew.

But there was another clause.

A clause I had never seen.

No spouse, current or future, shall have authority to transfer, encumber, sell, or otherwise dispose of the property without the sole written consent of Claire Bennett.

I stared at the sentence.

“Why didn’t I know about this?”

“Because you never needed to.”

Daniel tapped the page.

“And there’s more.”

He turned to another page.

My father had established a separate investment account.

An account that would become fully accessible to me on my fortieth birthday.

I was thirty-nine.

My birthday was three months away.

I looked at Daniel.

“How much is in it?”

He paused.

“Approximately $3.8 million.”

I couldn’t speak.

I had known my father was comfortable.

I hadn’t known about this.

My father had deliberately kept it separate.

Probably because he knew exactly what kind of people surrounded me.

CONTINUE FOR NEXT PART….