My father leaned in, eyes narrowing. “That’s…that’s not my signature.”
It looked close, I’ll give Victoria that. The same sweeping G, the same slant. But it was too smooth, like someone who’d practiced it on a hundred sheets of paper. My father’s real signature always had a tremor at the end, a slight impatient hook.
Patricia glanced at me. “Forgery,” she said simply.
My stomach dropped, not because I was surprised, but because a part of me had still been hoping I was wrong.
Marcus exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. “We treat this as criminal.”
My father put his face in his hands. “How could she—”
I didn’t answer, because the question wasn’t really about how. It was about why he hadn’t seen it.
Patricia continued. “There’s more. Several transfers from your joint account into a private trust. Four credit cards opened in your name in the last eighteen months. Charges include boutique purchases, travel, jewelry.”
My father looked up sharply. “I didn’t open those cards.”
Patricia flipped another page. “And a withdrawal from your retirement account. Three hundred and eighty thousand.”
Silence swallowed the room.
My father’s mouth opened, then closed, like he couldn’t find air. “That can’t be.”
Marcus’s voice was steady. “It can. And it is.”
I stared at the numbers until they blurred. My anger sharpened into something colder: clarity.
Victoria hadn’t just been cruel.
She’d been planning.
Patricia looked at me. “Do you have access to any personal documents Victoria might have hidden?” she asked. “Wills, letters, old files?”
The question hit me with a sudden memory: a locked drawer in my father’s study, one Victoria had always claimed contained “important legal documents.” When I’d asked what was inside years ago, she’d smiled and said, “Nothing you need to worry about.”
Practical.
I glanced at my father. “Dad,” I said slowly, “did Mom ever leave me anything? A letter? Something personal?”
His brow furrowed. “She wrote you letters,” he said. “She wrote one when she got sick. She asked me to give it to you when you turned eighteen.”
My heart stuttered. “Did you?”
He blinked, then looked stricken. “I… I thought I did. I remember putting it—” He stopped, eyes widening with realization. “Victoria…she organized my study after the funeral. She said she was helping.”
My throat tightened. “Dad,” I whispered, “I never got a letter.”