Chapter 4 - My Sister's Signature
Olivia answered on the fourth ring.
I didn't bother saying hello.
"Did you witness me signing a $2.4 million loan agreement?"
Silence.
Then she said, "What?"
"You heard me."
"Emily, I don't know what you're talking about."
I looked at the document spread across Margaret's table.
"Your signature is right here."
Another silence.
Then Olivia whispered, "Dad said that was just a formality."
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The answer I hadn't wanted.
"You knew I wasn't there."
"He told me you'd already signed everything."
"Then why did you sign as a witness?"
"Because he asked me to!"
Her voice rose.
"You don't understand what things have been like lately."
"Explain them."
Olivia began crying.
Her business had been failing for months.
She'd borrowed money to keep her employees paid after losing two major customers.
Dad had assured her he could arrange a family-backed refinancing.
"He said you were helping," she whispered.
"Did you ever ask me?"
"No."
"Did you wonder why I hadn't mentioned it?"
She didn't answer.
I felt something inside me settle.
For years, Olivia had treated our parents' attention as something she deserved and my sacrifices as something I owed.
Now she'd signed a financial document without seeing me sign it.
And she still wanted me to understand.
"I trusted Dad," she said finally.
"So did I."
I ended the call.
Margaret watched me without speaking.
I wasn't angry that Olivia had struggled.
Businesses failed.
People made mistakes.
I was angry that her first solution had been to make those mistakes mine.
By late afternoon, we returned to the vineyard.
Ruth Morales, my sixty-seven-year-old vineyard manager, met us outside the farmhouse.
She had worked for Grandpa since before I was born.
Her expression was worried.
"Emily, three employees asked me whether we're selling."
"Absolutely not."
"Charles told the equipment supplier the vineyard might be changing hands."
I looked at Jonathan.
He frowned.
"A disputed lien can cause this kind of trouble even before anything is decided. We need to establish that you're still operating normally."
I found the employees near the processing room.
There were eleven permanent staff members.
Some had worked here for decades.
I told them the truth without exposing every private detail.
"My family has attempted an unauthorized transaction involving the property. We're challenging it. Nobody is losing a job because of something they did."
Miguel, our cellar supervisor, looked relieved.
Ruth squeezed my hand afterward.
"Your grandfather would be proud."
I wished I could believe that without hesitation.
That evening, she brought me into the cellar.
Ninety-four rare bottles rested in carefully labeled wooden racks.
Grandpa had arranged them by region and vintage, not merely by value.
He could tell a story about nearly every bottle.
Ruth stopped beside a cabinet containing the vineyard's oldest inventory books.
"Edward always kept duplicate records," she said. "He didn't trust computers to remember everything."
She removed a thick red register.
Inside were handwritten wine inventories, delivery receipts, and cellar-maintenance expenses.
I recognized Grandpa's handwriting immediately.
Then Ruth opened a page dated August 2008.
"Look at these payments."
Three invoices were listed.
$48,000.
$62,500.
$39,000.
All supposedly for cellar restoration.
But the cellar hadn't been renovated in 2008.
It had been repaired in 2006.
"That's nearly $150,000," I said.
Ruth nodded.
"Your grandfather noticed the same thing."
Beside the payments, he'd written:
No work performed. Ask Charles.
Below that were more entries.
Every month, money had supposedly gone to a company called Portline Services.
I photographed the pages.
Jonathan compared them with the trust records we'd already obtained.
"The dates match several withdrawals," he said.
I stared at the register.
Grandpa hadn't simply suspected something.
He'd been tracing it.
Then I noticed a small handwritten notation repeated beside several invoices.
P.H.
"What's that?" I asked.
Ruth adjusted her glasses.
"Those are approval initials."
"Whose?"
She hesitated.
"Your mother's."
I turned toward Jonathan.
"Mom knew."
He didn't answer immediately.
But when he opened an old bank-authority form, there was her full name.
Patricia Harrington.
Authorized secondary signatory.
Effective February 2008.
I looked again at the withdrawals.
My father hadn't acted alone.
My mother had possessed access to the account from the very beginning.
May you like
And beside the largest transfer, Grandpa had written one final sentence in red ink.
Patricia promised she would tell Emily.
