Chapter 2 - The Signature
The document arrived while I was still sitting outside my own gate.
A scanned transfer agreement.
My name appeared at the bottom.
My signature appeared beneath it.
The agreement claimed I had surrendered my controlling interest in the company to Anton eight weeks earlier.
For one dollar.
I stared at the screen until the words stopped moving.
“I didn’t sign this.”
“I know,” Mendoza said.
“How?”
“The date. You were in my office that morning, signing your mother’s estate documents. I have the appointment record.”
My mother had been dead for nine months.
Even now, the mention of her could knock the air out of me.
Anton had held my hand at her funeral.
Apparently, he had spent the months afterward practicing my signature.
“Where did you get this?”
“Company counsel forwarded it. Anton wants the ownership register updated before tomorrow’s board meeting.”
Tomorrow.
They hadn’t thrown me out because they were impatient.
They had a deadline.
I enlarged the signature.
It looked convincing at first.
Then I noticed the C.
Too round.
Too careful.
I signed quickly. My mother used to joke that my signature looked like a woman running for a train.
This one looked like a woman drawn from memory.
“There’s more,” Mendoza said.
Of course there was.
“Since our last review, another two hundred thousand dollars has moved out of the operating account.”
“To where?”
“A consulting business called Vantage Advisory.”
Valerie’s initials were V. A.
I closed my eyes.
Six weeks earlier, a hotel charge had led me to messages.
The messages had led me to account statements.
The account statements had led me to Mendoza.
We had already documented enough unexplained transfers to seek emergency protection for disputed funds.
I had hoped the affair was the worst thing I would find.
That hope now felt almost embarrassing.
“What can we stop tonight?” I asked.
“The bank can revoke access you control. The company can suspend cards under your authority. For their personal accounts, we use the court process we discussed. Only identified funds, Clara. We do this cleanly.”
“Do it cleanly.”
“And the house?”
“In my name. Purchased before the wedding.”
“Good. Don’t go back alone.”
I drove to a hotel and checked in under my own name.
I wasn’t hiding.
Upstairs, I opened my suitcase.
Two sweaters.
A pair of shoes.
Toiletries dumped into a grocery bag.
No work clothes.
No jewelry.
No framed photograph of my mother.
Then I found an envelope tucked beneath a sleeve.
Inside was a settlement agreement.
A yellow note marked the signature line.
May you like
Anton had written five words.
SIGN, AND KEEP YOUR JOB.
