Chapter 7 - The Signature
Samantha obtained the financing paperwork that afternoon.
The signature looked like mine.
Almost.
The letters were right.
The angle was right.
Even the strange loop in the B was right.
But I knew immediately I hadn’t signed it.
“I sign Claire M. Bennett on financial documents.”
This signature read Claire Bennett.
Samantha nodded.
“It’s forged.”
A notarized document claimed I had personally invested $500,000 in Ryan’s company.
The notary was someone named Peter Wallace.
I had never met him.
The attached wire confirmation was worse.
Money had moved from an account associated with my stock compensation.
Not directly.
It bounced through two intermediary accounts first.
Ryan had covered his tracks.
Badly.
But enough to keep me from noticing while I was working sixty-hour weeks and preparing for a baby.
Ethan’s team traced the original transfer authorization.
It came from my old laptop.
The one in our home office.
The timestamp was 2:13 a.m.
I checked the date.
I had been in Seattle.
Presenting at a cybersecurity conference.
Ryan was home.
I remembered calling him before bed.
He told me he missed me.
I turned away from the laptop.
Samantha gave me a minute.
Then my phone buzzed.
A voicemail notification.
Ryan.
I almost deleted it.
Instead, I played it on speaker.
“Claire, stop.”
His voice was exhausted.
“You’re making everything worse.”
Then came the part that truly mattered.
“You know Dad loses his temper.”
“He didn’t mean to hurt the baby.”
“I panicked.”
“I held your wrists because everyone had been drinking and I thought you were going to attack him.”
Samantha raised one eyebrow.
Ryan continued.
“And the money stuff is not what it looks like.”
“The company was for us.”
“For the baby.”
“I was going to tell you.”
Then he said something he clearly had not intended to say.
“Dad said you’d understand once the transfer was finished.”
Silence.
Then the voicemail ended.
Samantha immediately saved three copies.
“Finished?”
I whispered.
“What transfer?”
We searched everything we had found.
Bank records.
Property filings.
Company accounts.
Insurance records.
Then Samantha remembered the safe.
“The folders Ryan pulled out.”
“What about them?”
“What was in the second folder?”
I pictured the camera footage.
Ryan reading.
Grant becoming angry.
Brooke hovering beside them.
“I don’t know.”
We returned to the bedroom.
The papers had been disturbed by police, but most remained.
Samantha sorted through them.
Then she stopped.
“There should be a document here.”
“What document?”
“Your penthouse deed.”
“We already know the deed is mine.”
“Not that one.”
She looked directly at me.
“The original certified copy.”
It was gone.
Then the lobby called.
A courier had arrived.
He had a document requiring my signature.
Sender: Bennett Property Holdings.
Ryan’s company.
I told security to send it upstairs.
When I opened the envelope, I finally understood what Ryan meant by transfer.
It was a deed.
May you like
Transferring my penthouse to his company.
And according to the document, I had already signed it.
