Chapter 6 - THE SIGNATURE I NEVER WROTE
I looked up instantly.
The woman who had left the note was already gone.
Daniel noticed the paper.
“What is that?”
I folded it.
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
But he did not press.
For the first time since graduation, I remembered the warning.
Don’t trust Daniel completely.
I hated that.
Daniel was the only person helping me.
But I had trusted Nathan completely too.
Look where that had gotten me.
I left the coffee shop and drove directly to my old medical school’s administrative building.
Most offices were closing after graduation, but I still knew one person there.
Professor Helen Carter.
She had taught my first-year physiology course and had once tried to convince me not to withdraw.
When I explained that I needed records connected to my enrollment, she didn’t ask many questions.
She simply looked at my face and said, “Come with me.”
An hour later, I was sitting in her office reviewing scanned documents from the year I left.
Then we found it.
Nathan’s second-year financial assistance application.
Marital income declaration attached.
My name.
My Social Security information.
My employment details.
And at the bottom—
my signature.
Except it wasn’t mine.
Someone had copied the way I formed the E in Emily and the long curve of my last name, but they had gotten the date wrong.
The document was signed on March 18.
That night I had been working a twelve-hour pharmacy shift across town.
Professor Carter studied the page.
“You’re certain?”
“I never signed this.”
Her expression turned serious.
“Then this is potentially fraud.”
My stomach twisted.
“What did this document authorize?”
She scrolled through the application.
“Financial disclosure. Aid qualification. Consent to verify household records.”
Then she stopped.
“Oh.”
“What?”
Professor Carter leaned closer to the monitor.
“There’s an attached spousal education waiver.”
I had no idea what that meant.
She opened it.
The form stated that I had voluntarily abandoned my medical studies and had no intention of returning within five academic years.
I felt the room tilt.
“Why would Nathan need that?”
Professor Carter’s face hardened.
“He wouldn’t.”
She clicked through another page.
“But somebody else might.”
At the time I withdrew, I had been eligible for a competitive reinstatement scholarship designed specifically for medical students who temporarily left school because of financial hardship.
If I returned within two years, most of my tuition could have been covered.
Nobody had ever told me.
Professor Carter looked horrified.
“Emily, according to this file, you declined it.”
“I never knew it existed.”
She turned the screen toward me.
There was another signature.
Mine.
Forged again.
May you like
And beside it was the name of the university employee who processed the waiver.
Rachel Monroe.
