Chapter 7 - THE DOCUMENT I NEVER KNEW I HAD
For fourteen years, the proof had been mine.
I simply hadn't known it.
"My father said I had the original," I told Thomas. "What did he mean?"
Thomas stared at the recorder.
"I don't know."
We searched the villa for hours.
Desk drawers.
Books.
Storage boxes.
Even the backs of framed photographs.
Nothing.
Then Leo wandered into the study.
"Mom?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"Why does Grandpa have the same dinosaur as me?"
I looked up.
Leo was pointing toward a shelf.
There, between two law books, sat a wooden dinosaur.
Small.
Green.
Nearly identical to the one stitched onto the backpack he'd carried since kindergarten.
I lifted it down.
The bottom opened.
Inside was a folded sheet protected by wax paper.
Thomas recognized it immediately.
"The shareholder transfer."
At first I didn't understand.
Then he explained.
This was the document Victoria had claimed my father signed, transferring his Atlantic Meridian shares back to the Vance family.
But the signature line was blank.
The original had never been executed.
The document Victoria's lawyers had relied upon for years contained a signature my father had never placed there.
Forgery.
Thomas photographed everything and contacted counsel.
The case that had looked complicated that morning suddenly became very simple.
But another paper was hidden inside the dinosaur.
A handwritten list.
Dates.
Amounts.
Account numbers.
And initials.
V.V.
H.V.
R.C.
Then one set I didn't recognize.
B.T.
Thomas did.
His face changed.
"Brooke Thorne."
Arthur's sister.
I stared at him.
"Brooke was a teenager when my father died."
"Yes."
"Then why would her initials be on these accounts?"
Thomas studied the dates.
His eyebrows tightened.
"These transactions didn't happen when your father was alive."
They began three years afterward.
And continued almost every month until last year.
Millions of dollars.
Brooke had been moving money through accounts carrying my dead father's initials.
I remembered her sitting across from me at the divorce.
Smiling.
Mocking me.
Acting as though I were leaving the family with nothing.
Thomas's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked directly at me.
"What happened?"
"Victoria filed her response."
"And?"
"She claims the original transfer agreement was destroyed."
I almost smiled.
"Too bad."
Thomas didn't smile back.
"There's something else."
Victoria had also filed a sworn statement claiming my father was mentally incompetent during his final months.
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And the witness who supported that claim was still alive.
My mother.
