Chapter 2 - THOMAS'S SIGNATURE
The moment Ryan said Thomas’s name, I forgot about breakfast.
“What document?”
Ryan looked defensive again.
“I don’t know.”
“Then call them back.”
“Mom—”
“Call them back.”
For once, he obeyed.
He put the banker on speaker.
A man named Charles Mercer explained that the bank’s internal review had uncovered an older guarantee attached to one of Ryan’s predecessor business accounts.
It predated the current catering company.
The document pledged investment assets belonging jointly to Thomas and me.
I stared at the phone.
“That is impossible.”
Charles paused.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“The document appears to have been executed nine years ago.”
Nine years.
The year Thomas died.
My hands went cold.
“What date?”
Paper shuffled.
“March seventeenth.”
Thomas had died on March nineteenth.
Two days later.
I sat down.
Ryan looked uncomfortable.
“Dad was helping me start the business.”
I turned toward him.
“You told me you started it after he died.”
“I started operating after he died.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Ryan’s eyes dropped.
Thomas had quietly loaned him money.
That alone did not upset me.
My husband loved his children.
He would have helped both of them build almost anything.
What bothered me was the secrecy.
“Charles,” I said, “what exactly was pledged?”
“A brokerage account ending in zero four nine two.”
I knew that account.
Thomas and I had built it over thirty years.
Not millions.
But enough to make retirement comfortable.
After his death, I was told it had been mostly liquidated to cover business losses connected to his estate.
At least that was what the estate summary said.
“How much was in it when the pledge was signed?”
Another pause.
“Approximately eight hundred and forty thousand dollars.”
I closed my eyes.
The estate documents I had received listed less than one hundred thousand.
More than seven hundred thousand dollars had vanished from the version of Thomas’s finances I had been shown.
Ryan began pacing.
“This has nothing to do with me.”
“Then why is your business attached to it?”
“I don’t know!”
His reaction looked genuine.
That complicated things.
Claire folded her arms.
“Maybe Thomas invested in Ryan’s company.”
“Then there would be records.”
“There are records,” Ryan snapped. “That’s what the bank just found.”
“No,” I said calmly.
“There is a document.”
I looked at him.
“That does not make it legitimate.”
Megan arrived twenty minutes later after I called her.
She walked into the kitchen carrying her laptop and a fury she made no attempt to hide.
David followed.
When I explained everything, Megan stared at her brother.
“You used Dad’s money?”
“I didn’t even know about this account.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“Yes!”
Ryan’s voice cracked.
For the first time, I wondered if he truly was as surprised as I was.
Then Charles emailed us a scanned copy.
We gathered around Megan’s laptop.
Thomas’s signature appeared at the bottom.
So did mine.
My breath stopped.
“That is not my signature.”
Megan zoomed in.
It looked convincing.
Very convincing.
But I knew how I signed my name.
Thomas used to tease me because I always connected the final two letters in Bennett.
This signature did not.
Someone had forged my name.
May you like
And beneath the signatures was the witness line.
The witness was Claire Bennett.
