Chapter 4: A Signature I Never Made
I stood at Marcus's desk for a long time.
The document didn't move.
The signature didn't change.
It sat there in the quiet of the empty office looking exactly like my name — the same slant on the capital letters, the same way the last stroke dropped below the line.
I pulled out my phone and took photographs of every page.
Then I put the folder back exactly where I'd found it, under the legal pad, at the same angle.
I didn't take it.
I didn't want Marcus to know I'd been there.
I drove home with the photographs on my phone and my hands steady on the wheel, which surprised me.
I'd expected to feel something louder.
Instead I felt cold and very focused, the way you feel in an emergency when the adrenaline burns clean.
Dana was still awake when I got back.
Lily was asleep in the guest room.
I sat down at the kitchen table and showed Dana the photographs.
She scrolled through them slowly.
When she got to the signature page, she stopped.
"That's your name," she said.
"It's not my signature."
"It looks like it."
"I know what it looks like.
I didn't sign it."
She handed the phone back.
"What's the holding company?"
"I don't know yet.
I've never heard of it."
"What does the contract transfer?"
I'd read it three times in the car, parked under a streetlight.
"Forty percent of the company.
Transferred to the holding company in exchange for a cash payment that was supposedly made eight months ago."
Dana set the phone down.
"Eight months ago."
"That's when Vanessa and I got engaged."
The word *engaged* felt strange in my mouth now.
Like a word in a language I used to speak.
"So she got close to you," Dana said.
"And while she was close to you, Marcus arranged a transfer of nearly half your company.
Using a signature that isn't yours."
"That's what it looks like."
"Do you have a lawyer?"
"I have a business attorney.
Paul Garrett.
I've used him for contracts before."
"Call him first thing Monday."
"I'm calling him tonight."
Dana started to object, then stopped.
She knew me well enough to know when I'd already decided.
Paul answered on the second ring, which told me he was still up.
I apologized for the hour.
He told me not to and asked what was wrong.
I described the document without sending the photographs yet — I wanted to tell him first, hear his reaction before anything was transmitted.
He was quiet for a moment after I finished.
"You're certain you never signed anything involving a Delaware holding company?"
"Certain."
"And the signature resembles yours closely?"
"Closely enough that I had to look twice."
Another pause.
"This could be forgery.
It could also be a document you signed without reading the full header — it happens more than people admit.
Before we assume the worst, I need to see the actual pages."
"I'll send them now."
I forwarded the photographs.
Paul went quiet for several minutes.
I could hear him moving, a chair, a lamp clicking on.
"The holding company name," he said finally.
"Meridian Crest Holdings."
"You recognize it?"
"I've seen it before.
Not in your industry." He paused again.
"Give me until tomorrow afternoon.
I want to run this through a contact at the state registry.
Don't confront Marcus.
Don't contact Vanessa.
Don't tell anyone else yet."
"My sister knows."
"Keep it at that." His voice was careful now, the way lawyers get when they've seen something they don't like.
"If this is what it appears to be, you'll want to move quietly until we know the full shape of it."
After I hung up, Dana made tea neither of us really wanted and we sat across from each other at the table.
"She knew," I said.
"When she walked out tonight, she already knew about the contract.
That's what the message meant.
*It's done.* The transfer was already filed.
She thought I was going to find out anyway — through the company, through an accountant, through something — and she was already gone."
"Then why stay as long as she did?" Dana asked.
I thought about it.
"To make sure I didn't look too closely at Marcus," I said.
"As long as I was focused on the wedding, on Lily, on building a life with her — I wasn't looking at the books."
Dana wrapped both hands around her mug.
"What made her do it today?" she said.
"At Lily's party, of all places?"
That question sat between us without an answer.
Then my phone buzzed on the table.
A text.
Unknown number.
May you like
*You should ask Marcus who introduced him to Vanessa.
And when.*
