Chapter 3 - The Signature That Wasn't Mine
Samantha called Deputy Mills while I watched the dead security feed.
"No," she said sharply into the phone. "Victoria is in the hospital. Nobody has permission to enter."
She listened.
Her face changed.
"What do you mean the front door is still sealed?"
I sat upright.
"Samantha?"
She held up one finger.
"Check the office window."
Silence.
"Yes. Now."
Another pause.
Then she looked at me.
"They're sending someone."
"Charles?"
"We don't know."
"It has to be."
"Don't assume."
The baby monitor continued its steady rhythm.
That sound kept me anchored.
Grace was safe.
Everything else could wait.
Except Lucas's music box.
Twenty minutes later, Deputy Mills called Samantha back.
The office window had been forced.
Someone had entered.
The music box was gone.
I felt sick.
"Did they take anything else?"
"Not obviously."
"Then they knew."
Samantha didn't disagree.
The question was how.
Only Lucas and I knew what that music box meant.
Or so I'd believed.
The following morning, contractions had slowed.
The doctors wanted to keep me under observation because my water had broken early.
I didn't argue.
For the first time in my life, there was something I wanted more than answers.
Grace.
Samantha worked from the visitor chair with her laptop open.
At nine fifteen, she received the first preliminary review of the document bearing my signature.
She read it twice.
"Tell me."
"It's a digital reproduction."
"Meaning?"
"Your signature appears to have been copied from another document and inserted."
My stomach dropped.
"Which document?"
"We don't know yet."
I thought about every contract I'd signed.
Mortgage papers.
Insurance.
Company forms from years ago.
My father had access to countless examples.
"Can they prove who did it?"
"Not from the signature alone."
"But someone submitted it."
"Yes."
"Who?"
She turned the laptop toward me.
The authorization had been transmitted through a corporate administrative account.
CBaldwin-Exec.
My father's office.
I stared at it.
"He didn't even hide it."
"That doesn't prove Charles personally transmitted it."
"You're still being a lawyer."
"That's why Lucas hired me."
Despite everything, I smiled.
Around noon, Courtney called.
I almost ignored it.
Samantha saw the name.
"Your decision."
I answered.
"What?"
Courtney was crying.
Real crying this time.
"I didn't know."
"Didn't know what?"
"Any of it."
"You laughed at me."
Silence.
"When my water broke, you laughed."
"I was nervous."
"No. You weren't."
"Victoria—"
"You thought it was funny."
"I shouldn't have."
"No."
She sniffed.
"I called because Charles is furious."
"That's not news."
"He thinks you took something from the office."
I looked at Samantha.
"What?"
"The silver box."
My blood turned cold.
"How do you know about the silver box?"
Courtney stopped crying.
That silence told me more than an answer.
"Courtney."
"I have to go."
"How do you know?"
The call ended.
Samantha was already writing down the time.
"She knew."
"Yes."
"Which means Charles knew."
"Or Courtney knew independently."
"How?"
"We find out."
At two, an investigator from the sheriff's office came to take my formal statement.
I told him everything.
The emergency key.
The folder.
The argument.
My father's hands on me.
The porch.
Courtney laughing.
The forged document.
I didn't embellish.
I didn't need to.
Truth sounded terrible enough.
When he finished, he said, "There's something else."
"What?"
"A neighbor's doorbell camera captured a vehicle behind your property last night."
"Whose?"
"Registered to Baldwin-Gallagher Logistics."
Samantha and I exchanged a look.
"Who was driving?"
"Camera angle didn't catch the face."
"Employee?"
"We're checking."
After he left, Samantha opened Lucas's corporate records.
"We need to understand Archive G."
"Could G mean Gallagher?"
"Possibly."
"Or Grace."
She looked at me.
That possibility hurt.
Lucas had been building all of this while we were planning our daughter's nursery.
At four thirty, another visitor arrived.
Martin Hale.
Baldwin-Gallagher's chief financial officer.
I'd met him dozens of times.
Sixty-one.
Quiet.
Glasses.
The sort of man people forgot was in a room.
My father hated that about him.
Lucas trusted him.
Martin stood awkwardly beside my hospital bed holding his hat.
"I'm sorry about Lucas."
"Thank you."
He glanced at Samantha.
"Can we speak privately?"
"She stays."
He nodded.
Then he removed a flash drive from his pocket.
"Lucas gave me this."
My pulse jumped.
"When?"
"Six weeks before he died."
"Why didn't you give it to me?"
"He told me not to unless Charles attempted to exercise authority over his shares."
Samantha stood.
"That happened yesterday."
"I know."
Martin handed her the drive.
"What's on it?" I asked.
"Copies of internal ledgers."
"The missing money?"
His eyes moved toward me.
"Lucas believed approximately $8.4 million had been redirected over four years."
My mouth went dry.
"By my father?"
"I don't know."
"But you suspect him."
"I suspect someone with executive authority."
"How many people had that?"
"Five."
"Names."
Martin hesitated.
"Charles. Lucas. Me. Operations director Richard Cole. And corporate counsel Elaine Mercer."
"Lucas is dead."
"Yes."
"So four."
Martin looked down.
"Three."
Samantha noticed.
"Why three?"
"Because Elaine Mercer resigned this morning."
"Why?"
"No explanation."
"Where is she?"
"Nobody knows."
Samantha inserted the flash drive into an encrypted laptop.
A password prompt appeared.
"What password?"
Martin shook his head.
"Lucas said Victoria would know."
Of course he did.
I stared at the screen.
Password hint:
THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGED.
My first thought was our wedding date.
Wrong.
The day we learned I was pregnant.
Wrong.
The day Lucas bought the company shares.
I didn't know it.
Then I remembered something he'd said on our second anniversary.
The day he'd added me to the deed.
"This is the day it becomes ours."
I entered the date.
Access granted.
Folders appeared.
Invoices.
Transfers.
Property records.
Emails.
And one folder named G.
"Archive G," I whispered.
Samantha opened it.
Inside were dozens of files.
The final one was a video.
Recorded by Lucas.
My breath stopped.
His face appeared on the screen.
Alive.
Tired.
Beautiful.
My husband looked directly into the camera.
"If you're watching this, Vic, something went wrong."
I covered my mouth.
Samantha reached for the pause button.
"Do you want me to stop?"
"No."
Lucas continued.
"I need you to know first that none of this was your fault. I didn't tell you because you're pregnant, and I thought I could finish this before it ever reached you."
He looked away from the camera.
"I found unauthorized transfers inside Baldwin-Gallagher."
Martin sat completely still.
Lucas continued.
"I don't yet know who's responsible. But I know the records were altered after I began asking questions."
He held up a document.
"The money leads through three shell companies."
Samantha leaned closer.
Lucas named them.
Northway Advisory.
Crescent Freight Consulting.
And CBL Holdings.
Martin whispered, "I've never heard of the third one."
Lucas looked back into the camera.
"If Charles tries to take control after I'm gone, don't fight him emotionally. Let the documents do it."
Tears blurred the screen.
Then Lucas said something I hadn't expected.
"And Victoria, there's one person you need to be careful trusting."
The video glitched.
The image froze.
Then resumed.
But several seconds were corrupted.
Lucas was already finishing the sentence.
"...because that person had access to every transfer."
"Who?" I whispered.
The video ended.
Samantha checked the file.
"That's all."
"No."
I reached for the laptop.
"There has to be more."
There wasn't.
Then Martin's phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His face drained of color.
"What?"
He turned the screen toward us.
It was a company-wide notice.
EMERGENCY BOARD MEETING — 9:00 A.M. TOMORROW.
Authorized by Charles Baldwin.
Purpose: Removal of Victoria Gallagher as successor voting representative due to incapacity.
I stared at the word.
Incapacity.
Because I was in a hospital.
Because I was pregnant.
Because my husband was dead.
Charles wasn't retreating.
He was trying to remove me.
Samantha looked at Martin.
"Can he?"
Martin slowly shook his head.
"Not unless he gets one more board vote."
"From whom?"
Martin looked toward the door.
Before he could answer, someone knocked.
A woman stepped into my hospital room.
May you like
She carried a familiar silver music box.
And I had never seen her before.
