Chapter 7 - The Signature
Thomas Grant had known me since I was nine years old.
He attended my father’s funeral.
He held Lily when she was a newborn.
He taught me how to read trust statements after my father died.
The idea that he could betray me felt impossible.
But impossible had become an ordinary word in my life.
Agent Cole arrived that afternoon with two investigators.
They photographed Lily’s room.
They copied data from my old laptop.
They examined the home office where David kept years of corporate files.
I stood in the doorway.
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“A hardware authentication device.”
I frowned.
“My signing key?”
“Yes.”
“It was stored in the wall safe.”
“Can you show us?”
I opened the safe.
The small black security token was gone.
I stared at the empty compartment.
“I haven’t used it in months.”
Agent Cole asked.
“Who knew the combination?”
“David.”
“Katherine?”
“No.”
“Thomas?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
Agent Cole nodded slowly.
Then one investigator found something beneath David’s desk.
A hotel receipt.
Nassau.
Dated six weeks before his supposed detox trip.
I looked at Agent Cole.
“He told me he was in Boston that week.”
Agent Cole photographed it.
“Apparently not.”
That evening, Katherine and I reconstructed the previous eight months.
Fake proxy documents.
Offshore transfers.
Loans secured against corporate reserves.
Payments to shell companies.
Every path eventually touched Thomas Grant.
But something bothered me.
“Thomas hated David.”
Katherine looked up.
“He never trusted him.”
“Then why help him?”
“Money changes people.”
“Not Thomas.”
I remembered one conversation from three weeks earlier.
Thomas had called me unexpectedly.
He asked whether David ever used my office computer.
At the time, I thought it was a strange question.
Then he said something else.
“Keep copies of anything David asks you to sign.”
I stood quickly.
“Katherine.”
“What?”
“Thomas warned me.”
She frowned.
“That doesn’t sound like an accomplice.”
I called Agent Cole.
He answered after two rings.
“I think Thomas was afraid of David.”
Cole was silent.
“Why?”
“Because he warned me about signatures.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Agent Cole exhaled.
“That changes something.”
“What?”
“We found an encrypted email on David’s second phone.”
“From Thomas?”
“No.”
“To Thomas.”
My pulse jumped.
“What did David write?”
Agent Cole read the message.
“You have until the yacht returns.”
“If Maya discovers what happened to Lily’s trust before then, you know what comes next.”
I gripped the phone.
“What came next?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Agent Cole added something worse.
“Thomas never boarded the flight from O’Hare.”
I froze.
“But his passport was scanned.”
“Yes.”
“Then where is he?”
May you like
“That is exactly what we’re trying to determine.”
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