Chapter 2 - THE SIGNATURE THAT WASN'T MINE
Nobody spoke after I ended the call.
I opened my banking app.
There it was.
$4,862.
Pending.
The charge had appeared under the cruise line’s parent company, which was why I had not recognized it immediately.
I looked at Melissa.
“Did you use my card?”
She shook her head too quickly.
“No.”
“Did Deborah?”
Deborah folded her arms.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
My father stepped between us.
“Enough. We’ll reimburse you.”
I stared at him.
“We?”
His face changed.
Tiny mistake.
Huge meaning.
“You knew.”
“I knew Deborah adjusted the reservation.”
“Adjusted?”
My voice rose despite myself.
“She deleted my children.”
“You’re being emotional.”
I laughed.
Of course.
Whenever someone wanted a woman to stop asking useful questions, she suddenly became emotional.
My phone rang.
Marissa again.
“I need to clarify something important.”
I turned on speaker.
“We found an uploaded authorization form attached to the passenger change request.”
“What kind?”
“A signed statement giving Deborah Hart temporary permission to manage the reservation on your behalf.”
The room became very still.
“I never signed anything.”
“I understand.”
Marissa continued carefully.
“The signature appears to be yours.”
My heart started pounding.
“Can you send it to me?”
“Yes.”
The email arrived seconds later.
I opened the PDF.
My name.
My address.
My signature.
Except the signature had been copied from somewhere else.
I knew exactly where.
Two months earlier, my father had asked me to sign paperwork authorizing him to pick Owen up from school in an emergency.
The shape of the C.
The long stroke beneath Bennett.
Identical.
Not similar.
Identical.
I turned the screen toward him.
“Where did you keep the school authorization?”
Dad’s face went pale.
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“In my desk.”
I looked at Deborah.
She finally stopped pretending to be offended.
“You went through his desk.”
“I live here.”
“That document belonged to me.”
“It was just a signature.”
Melissa whispered, “Mom…”
Deborah snapped, “Quiet.”
There it was.
Not denial.
Admission.
My father sat down slowly.
“You forged her name?”
Deborah looked at him.
“Oh, don’t act shocked now. You knew Melissa’s kids were going.”
“I thought she had agreed.”
“Why would she agree to remove her own children?”
Nobody answered.
Marissa was still on the call.
She asked whether I wanted the fraud department to preserve the authorization form and account-access records.
“Yes.”
“Absolutely.”
Then she added one detail.
“The authorization was submitted from an email address that is not on your account.”
“Whose?”
“I can’t disclose the owner without the proper process, but I can tell you the domain.”
She read it.
My stomach dropped.
It belonged to my father’s company.
Not Deborah’s email.
May you like
Not Melissa’s.
The forged authorization had been sent from my father’s workplace.
