“I tried privately for six months.”
Diane lowered her voice.
“You don’t understand what is at stake. If the company owns this house, we could lose everything.”
“That house was saved with money from the business I helped build.”
She fell silent.
Then she said something that changed everything.
“Nathan promised us Brooke’s company would purchase the mansion back.”
I sat up straight.
“Purchase it with what money?”
Diane hesitated too long.
I reopened the transfer records and searched Brooke’s company again. Three recent payments matched exactly what Nathan’s parents still owed our business.
Nathan had not simply stolen money to impress Brooke.
He intended to use our own company funds to sell the mansion to Brooke far below market value, removing one of our most valuable assets before filing for divorce.
Sarah studied the records.
“This could be deliberate fraud.”
Then my phone rang again.
This time it was Brooke.
When I answered, she sounded strangely confident.
“You need to stop the investigation,” she said. “Because Nathan isn’t the only person whose signature appears on those documents.”
Then she emailed me a contract bearing my name.
Part 3
The signature looked exactly like mine.
But I knew immediately it had been forged.
The contract claimed I had approved selling the mansion to Brooke’s company at a discounted price. If investigators believed it was genuine, I could appear to be part of the fraud.
Brooke laughed softly.
“You handle the financial paperwork, Claire. Who do you think they’ll blame?”
“You forged my signature.”
“Prove it.”
Then she hung up.
For the first time that night, I felt afraid.
Sarah examined the contract and noticed the digital signature had been created from my office computer two weeks earlier. That detail worried us because I had been working that day.
Then I remembered.
