Chapter 6

I looked up.

“You forged my name on a credit application,” I said.

“I helped with the paperwork—”

“You put my name on a house contract.”

“I was going to tell you—”

“You told a room full of my father’s friends that my inheritance would pay your family’s debts while his photograph was ten feet away from you.”

Ethan opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Sophia Grant stepped forward.

She was small, quiet, and carried herself like someone who had spent years letting records speak louder than people.

She opened her laptop.

“Mr. Reyes, let me save everyone some time,” she said. “The online application for the home-equity line was submitted from the IP address at your office. The signature was traced from Claire’s passport application. We compared them side by side. The tremor pattern in the capital C is identical, which is how we know it was traced instead of signed. A real signature never lands exactly the same way twice.”

She tapped a key.

“The house contract was notarized by a mobile notary named Dale Purcell. Mr. Purcell keeps a careful journal. The identification number he logged does not belong to Claire. He told us a man brought the documents to him already signed and said his wife was too overcome with grief to attend. He remembers the man wore a gray suit and looked nervous.”

She looked at Ethan.

“He also remembers that the man tipped him twenty dollars for being quick.”

Ethan went pale.

“And this,” Sophia said, tapping another key, “was recovered from a cloud backup connected to your business email.”

A document filled the screen.

The heading read:

Petition for Temporary Conservatorship.

My name appeared beneath it, followed by a date three weeks in the future.

A blank line waited at the bottom for a signature and court seal.

The room seemed to tilt.

The first paragraph described me as “increasingly forgetful, emotionally unstable, and unable to responsibly manage complex financial matters following the loss of a parent.”

“That’s not finished,” Ethan said hoarsely. “That was only a draft. It was a contingency.”

“A contingency,” I repeated.

“In case you fell apart, Claire! You were crying every night. I was scared for you.”

“You photographed me crying,” I said. “You told me it was to remember how much I’d been through.”

“I—”

“You asked me every single evening whether I had taken the sleeping aids. You kept the bottle in your nightstand. You asked Dr. Bell to write that I was forgetful. I remember now. You asked her twice.”

That was when Patricia broke.

“I told you it would only be temporary,” she cried, staring at her son. Her polished composure was gone. Mascara streaked her face. “You said she would rest. You said she would be looked after. You said it was for her own good and we would just be managing things until she was feeling better!”