Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO SIGNED EIGHT YEARS TOO EARLY
Claire did not speak.
Dominic looked at the page.
Then at her.
Daniel stared between them.
Marco took the document.
“That’s impossible.”
Claire found her voice.
“I was living in Indianapolis eight years ago.”
Dominic nodded.
“I know.”
“I had never met any of you.”
“I know.”
Her signature was unmistakable.
Claire Bennett.
The same long stroke beneath the B.
The same slight upward hook at the end.
She hated that it looked real.
Marco studied the bottom corner.
“This isn’t original.”
Daniel nodded.
“Teresa photocopied it.”
“But the second signature may have been added later.”
Claire looked at him.
“After someone got my signature.”
“Yes.”
“Which means someone altered an old financial record after Dominic and I met.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
“Why?”
Marco answered.
“To create a history.”
Claire felt cold.
Not one suspicious transaction.
A pattern.
A story.
Dominic had supposedly been moving his niece’s money for years.
Then he met Claire.
Then Claire somehow appeared on old authorizations.
Finally five million dollars landed in her account after marriage.
If investigators saw the documents in the right order, it would look less like theft.
It would look like conspiracy.
Daniel looked furious.
“Who had access to her signature?”
Dominic immediately answered.
“Everyone.”
Claire stared at him.
He explained.
“Wedding license copies. Prenuptial documents. Foundation paperwork. Security forms.”
Marco added, “Charity agreements.”
Claire looked at him.
“What charity agreements?”
“The Bennett Community Reading Fund.”
She frowned.
Three months earlier, Dominic had quietly donated money to the literacy program Claire supported.
She had signed acknowledgment forms.
Marco continued.
“Vincent reviewed that project because Vale Foundation funded it.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“So Vincent had a clean copy of my signature.”
“Yes.”
Dominic took the document.
“And access to the watch.”
“Potentially.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“So we’re done pretending we don’t know who did this.”
“No,” Claire said.
Three men looked at her.
She hated that she was defending Vincent.
But she had learned something that morning.
Fear made people decide too quickly.
“Teresa specifically wrote that she didn’t think Vincent was stealing.”
“Eight years ago,” Daniel said.
“Yes.”
Claire pointed toward the old approval.
“If Vincent planned this whole thing, why keep a document Teresa had already seen? Why build evidence using something that could lead directly to him?”
Marco studied her.
“She has a point.”
Dominic looked at the snow beyond the glass doors.
“What are you thinking?”
Claire looked at the copied signature.
“Somebody wants Vincent to look guilty.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed.
“And somebody wants Claire to look greedy,” Dominic said.
She nodded.
“Which means those may be the same person.”
They returned to the estate before sunset.
For the first time since the wedding, Claire entered Dominic’s study not as a guest in his world but as a partner in a problem.
Records covered the desk.
Marco brought financial files.
Caroline produced wedding purchase orders.
Paul Raines provided access logs.
Leonard Pike arrived irritated and became considerably less irritated when Dominic showed him Teresa’s altered trust authorization.
By seven o’clock, one fact was clear.
Dominic had chosen none of the five extravagant wedding gifts personally.
He had approved a budget.
Marco had selected categories.
Then other departments had executed purchases.
The necklace had been substituted by Vincent’s office.
The investment account had been arranged through Vale Foundation finance.
The penthouse deed had been processed by Leonard.
The car came through a corporate leasing subsidiary.
The black card was issued through Vale Holdings executive services.
Different departments.
Different people.
One common authorization path.
Vale executive administration.
Claire looked at the list.
“Who runs that?”
Marco did not answer.
Dominic did.
“Marco.”
Claire slowly turned.
Marco’s face remained still.
“That does not mean I arranged the fraud.”
“No,” Dominic said. “But it means everything moved through your office.”
Marco removed his glasses.
“I understand what it means.”
Leonard shifted uncomfortably.
“I should probably leave.”
Dominic looked at him.
“You should probably stay exactly where you are.”
Leonard sat again.
Claire almost smiled.
Then Paul Raines entered carrying a small evidence pouch.
“I found something.”
He placed it on the desk.
Inside was a gold watch with a black face.
Dominic stopped.
“My father’s watch.”
Marco stood.
“Where?”
“Security locker B.”
Dominic looked confused.
“That belonged to Vincent.”
Paul nodded.
“According to the intake log, Vincent surrendered it when he entered the restricted accounting floor yesterday.”
Claire frowned.
“Why?”
“Electronic devices aren’t allowed inside audit rooms.”
Dominic took the watch from the pouch.
“So Vincent still has it.”
“Yes.”
“Then someone took it from the locker?”
Paul shook his head.
“No. It’s been there since yesterday morning.”
Marco glanced at the timestamp.
“The five-million-dollar authorization was created Monday.”
Two days earlier.
The watch proved nothing.
But Claire noticed something else.
The leather band was new.
“Was this always the strap?”
Dominic looked.
“No.”
He turned the watch over.
The back plate bore a tiny scratch shaped like a crescent.
His face changed.
“This isn’t my father’s watch.”
Marco leaned closer.
“It looks identical.”
“It isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“My father dropped his down the marble staircase when I was seventeen. The back plate had a dent beside the crown.”
Dominic held up the watch.
“No dent.”
Claire felt another piece shift.
“A duplicate.”
Paul frowned.
“We’ve been guarding a copy.”
Dominic placed it down.
“Where is the real watch?”
Nobody answered.
Then Leonard spoke.
“Maybe Vincent has it somewhere else.”
Marco looked at him.
“Or maybe Vincent never had the real one.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
Marco’s voice was careful.
“The night you gave him the watch, there were thirty people at the house.”
“I remember.”
“Your father’s things had been displayed in the library.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Are you saying someone switched it before Vincent received it?”
“I’m saying we have assumed for years that the watch in Vincent’s possession was genuine.”
Claire looked at the altered trust document again.
“The approval codes could have been generated by whoever kept the real one.”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
Paul cleared his throat.
“There’s another problem.”
He placed a printout on the desk.
Security footage.
A still image from three weeks before the wedding.
Claire recognized herself immediately.
She was standing outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Talking to Daniel.
Dominic looked at her.
Claire’s stomach tightened.
She had hoped she would never have to explain that moment this way.
“Claire?”
She did not look away.
“Yes.”
“You told me you first understood who Daniel was today.”
“No.”
The room went very still.
Dominic’s voice became quiet.
“When did you know?”
May you like
Claire looked at the photograph.
“Three weeks before we got married.”
