Chapter 12 - The Forged Signature
Claire studied the page under bright light.
The handwriting looked like Elena’s.
The initials did not.
“Different pressure,” she said.
Adrian frowned.
“What?”
“The pen pressure changes.”
She pointed.
“Elena writes lightly. These initials were pressed hard enough to emboss the paper.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“So forged.”
“Probably added later.”
Jonah scanned the page.
Claire enlarged it.
Tiny fibers around A.V. were darker.
Different ink.
“Three entries, three pens,” she said.
“Can we prove it?” Adrian asked.
“With a document examiner.”
He nodded.
Then Claire looked at D.V.
“Dominic’s initials may be fake too.”
Dominic gave a humorless laugh.
“Nice to know.”
Adrian asked, “What about Victor?”
Claire looked again.
“His might be original.”
Silence.
That evening, a forensic examiner confirmed it.
Elena had written V.S.
Someone else had added D.V. and A.V.
The frame job was becoming visible.
Claire should have felt relieved.
Instead, she felt worse.
“Why leave a document that can be disproved?” she asked.
Adrian said, “To waste time.”
“Yes.”
“And to divide us.”
“Yes.”
Dominic leaned against the wall.
“Working.”
Claire looked at him.
“You still think Adrian could be involved?”
“I think anybody can be involved.”
That included her.
She hated him for being right.
At 10:15 p.m., Jonah found access logs from the night Elena disappeared.
Someone had entered the garage camera server.
Deleted forty-three minutes.
Used an administrator token.
“Whose?” Adrian asked.
Jonah swallowed.
“Mine.”
Claire stared.
“You had that token eighteen months ago?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“Raymond knew my password then. We changed policy afterward.”
“Victor?”
“No.”
“Dominic?”
“No.”
Adrian said, “Me?”
Jonah hesitated.
“You had override privileges.”
There it was again.
Another loop pointing back to Adrian.
Claire stood.
“What if that’s the point?”
Adrian looked at her.
“What?”
“Every trail leads to you just enough to create suspicion, but never enough to prove anything.”
Dominic said, “So they want law enforcement looking at Adrian while they move something bigger.”
Claire opened the current financial dashboard.
“Exactly.”
Then she saw it.
A pending asset sale.
Three warehouses.
Two parking structures.
One freight terminal.
All scheduled for transfer at midnight.
Buyer: North Lake Development Partners.
Price: $11.4 million.
Estimated market value: $46 million.
Adrian’s face went cold.
“I never approved that.”
Claire looked at the authorization chain.
May you like
The final approval was scheduled to execute automatically.
In ninety-one minutes.
