Chapter 3 - THE SIGNATURE THAT BETRAYED HIM
“Then explain why Erin sent us the records herself.”
Stephen Perry's question stopped Matthew before he could sit down.
Across the Christmas table, eleven men waited.
Matthew placed both hands on the polished wood.
“Because she's frightened. She knows an audit is coming.”
Donald Berry nodded.
“People who steal money sometimes try to accuse someone else first.”
Stephen looked at him.
“Did I ask for your opinion, Donald?”
Donald leaned back.
Alexis stared down at her plate.
Matthew slid the authorization closer.
“There. September seventeenth. Four hundred eighty thousand dollars transferred to Northline Equipment. Approved by Erin.”
Frank Delaney examined the signature.
“I thought you said Northline was a legitimate contractor.”
“It is.”
“Then why are you calling the payment theft?”
Matthew's mouth tightened.
“Because Erin had no authority to use those funds.”
Stephen held up the paper.
“Yet you just said the transfer was legitimate.”
For the first time, Matthew had no immediate answer.
He glanced toward the dining room doors.
His wife was supposed to be upstairs.
Crying, perhaps.
Embarrassed about Alexis.
Waiting for him to decide what happened next.
Instead, she had arranged the evening more carefully than he had.
“Where is Erin?” Stephen asked again.
Matthew lifted his chin.
“In her room.”
Rosa stood near the doorway.
“No, sir.”
Matthew turned.
“What did you say?”
“Mrs. Harrison left the house at six forty-eight.”
The silence that followed seemed to swallow the Christmas music.
Matthew stared at her.
“Left for where?”
“She didn't tell me where she was going.”
“Did she take the car?”
“No, sir.”
Matthew looked toward the windows.
Snow was falling hard.
His wife was thirty weeks pregnant.
And for the first time in their marriage, he had absolutely no idea where she was.
Twenty miles away, Erin sat at a kitchen table in a modest cottage belonging to Margaret Doyle.
Margaret was fifty-eight, with silver-streaked hair and hands roughened by years of working in a school cafeteria.
Her husband, Patrick, had died after injuries sustained in the 2019 harbor fire.
Erin had met her six months earlier while reviewing a delayed assistance request.
Margaret had offered her tea that afternoon.
Now she offered something more important.
A room.
“You shouldn't be going through this while you're carrying a baby,” Margaret said.
Erin wrapped both hands around a warm mug.
“I should have left before Christmas.”
“You left when you were ready.”
Erin looked at the small suitcase beside the fireplace.
Everything she owned that mattered fit inside it.
A photograph of her mother.
Her marriage certificate.
Joseph's pocket watch.
And a folder containing seven years of personal bookkeeping notes.
Margaret studied her.
“Have they opened the envelopes?”
Erin checked the kitchen clock.
“By now.”
“And what happens next?”
“Matthew tells them I'm lying.”
“You sound certain.”
“Because I know my husband.”
Margaret sat opposite her.
“Then you'd better be ready for what he does after that.”
Erin opened the folder.
“I am.”
But when she looked at the first copied authorization, her confidence disappeared.
She stared at the signature.
Not the amount.
Not the date.
The signature.
“Margaret, bring me my glasses.”
Back at the Harrison estate, Stephen refused to leave.
At nine thirty, the other men began discussing whether they should suspend approval of Matthew's proposed transportation partnership.
Donald wanted the meeting ended.
Matthew wanted the documents collected.
Stephen wanted answers.
Carl Murray arrived from the study carrying his reading glasses and an expression that suggested he already regretted remaining at the estate.
Matthew immediately approached him.
“Tell them Erin handled those accounts.”
“She prepared summaries,” Carl replied.
“And approved payments.”
“Not necessarily.”
Matthew narrowed his eyes.
“What exactly are you suggesting?”
“That preparing a reconciliation isn't the same thing as authorizing a transfer.”
Stephen placed the September document in front of Carl.
“Is this her signature?”
Carl studied it.
“It resembles her signature.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“I can't authenticate it by looking at a copy.”
Matthew slammed his glass onto the sideboard.
“Unbelievable. Every person I've supported for years suddenly wants to question me.”
Stephen stood.
“Joseph supported people, Matthew. That's how this fund began.”
“My father isn't here.”
“No,” Stephen said. “And I'm beginning to see how much you've depended on that.”
Alexis rose abruptly.
“Daddy, I want to go home.”
Donald caught her wrist.
“Sit down.”
She looked at his hand.
“Please let go.”
He released her.
Matthew barely noticed.
He was looking at Carl.
“You'll find Erin. You'll tell her to return, and we'll settle this privately.”
Carl did not move.
“Matthew, your wife isn't a missing piece of property.”
Matthew's expression hardened.
“She took confidential business records.”
“She preserved copies of records she prepared.”
“I'll have her charged.”
Stephen turned toward him.
“Then you'll have to explain the contents of these envelopes to investigators.”
Nobody moved.
Matthew finally understood that threatening his wife might no longer frighten the people around him.
At Margaret's cottage, Erin had spread three documents across the table.
The September authorization.
An October authorization.
And a faded payroll approval from Christmas 2019.
She had signed that older paper herself, using a blue fountain pen Joseph had given her.
A tiny drop of ink had fallen beside the last letter of Fisher.
She remembered it because Joseph had laughed.
“Never trust a bookkeeper who can't account for her own ink,” he'd teased.
Erin had kept the original as a sentimental reminder of her first Christmas managing the holiday payroll.
Now she positioned the three signatures under Margaret's reading lamp.
Every loop matched.
Every stroke matched.
Even the tiny blue blot.
Margaret leaned closer.
“Is that possible?”
Erin felt suddenly cold.
Her handwriting changed slightly depending on the pen, her wrist, and the speed at which she wrote.
No two real signatures were perfectly identical.
But these were.
The September and October authorizations weren't merely imitations.
They were copies of the same old signature.
Erin remembered Matthew borrowing the Christmas payroll folder in July.
He'd said the accountant needed historical examples of reimbursement procedures.
She had handed it over without hesitation.
At the time, she'd been thirteen weeks pregnant and exhausted by morning sickness.
Matthew had kissed her cheek.
“Don't worry about the paperwork. I'll take care of it.”
Now she understood what he'd really been taking care of.
Margaret touched her arm.
“Erin?”
Erin reached for Joseph's watch.
Then she opened the oldest folder and found the paper she'd almost forgotten.
A July memorandum requesting that her financial access be removed.
It had been filed three days before Matthew borrowed the payroll folder.
At the bottom was a handwritten instruction in her husband's unmistakable block lettering.
Use the old authorization if she asks questions.
Erin stared at those eight words.
May you like
Matthew hadn't simply copied her signature.
He had planned to use it against her before she even discovered his affair.
