Julian made it three steps.
The deputy caught him before his hand reached the side door.
“Sir, stop.”
“I’m leaving my own garage!”
“You were specifically told to remain here.”
“You can’t detain me!”
“I said stop.”
Something in the deputy’s voice finally reached him.
Julian froze.
His chest rose and fell beneath the silk robe.
I was still holding my phone.
My mother’s words echoed in my head.
It has your signature on it.
Harrison moved beside me.
“Ask Martha exactly where the envelope is.”
I raised the phone.
“Mom?”
“I’m here.”
“Where did you hide it?”
She hesitated.
“In the house.”
Julian turned his head.
“Where?”
Harrison immediately raised a hand.
“Don’t answer that over speaker.”
I switched the call off speaker and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Tell only me.”
Mom whispered something.
For several seconds, I couldn’t understand why.
Then suddenly I did.
Of course.
It was the last place Julian would have searched.
“Stay at the hotel,” I told her. “Lock your door. Don’t open it for anyone except the nurse or hotel security.”
“Natalie…”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
My throat tightened.
“For what?”
“For letting it get this far.”
“No, Mom. We’ll talk later. Right now I need you safe.”
I ended the call.
Harrison looked at me.
“You know where it is?”
“Yes.”
“Should we retrieve it?”
I looked at Julian.
He was watching me far too carefully.
“Yes.”
Khloe wiped her face.
“Where did she put it?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Natalie, I’m trying to help.”
“Then start helping by telling the truth.”
Her eyes dropped.
I turned to Harrison.
“It’s upstairs.”
Julian immediately stepped forward.
“No.”
Every person in the garage looked at him.
That one word was enough.
Harrison’s expression sharpened.
“Why not?”
Julian realized his mistake.
“I mean, if she’s searching our private belongings, that’s different.”
“It isn’t in your belongings,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Because Mom told me where it is.”
I walked back into the house.
Harrison followed.
One deputy came with us while the other remained near Julian and Khloe.
The house felt different now.
Hours earlier, Julian had stood behind the bar as if he owned every inch of it.
Now the glasses were abandoned.
Half-eaten food sat on plates.
A bottle of champagne remained open beside a silver ice bucket.
I climbed the stairs.
At the top, I passed the master bedroom.
The door was open.
I stopped.
That room had been designed for Mom.
I had chosen the windows because they faced the morning sun.
I had ordered a reading chair for the corner because she loved mystery novels.
The chair was gone.
Instead, Julian’s expensive jackets filled one side of the room.
Khloe’s cosmetics covered the vanity.
Two suitcases sat beside a king-size bed I had never seen.
“Where did they put my mother’s furniture?”
Harrison didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
I continued down the hallway.
Mom had told me to go to the linen closet.
I opened it.
Fresh towels.
Sheets.
Cleaning products.
Nothing unusual.
“Top shelf,” I murmured.
I reached upward.
My fingers touched a stack of folded blankets.
Behind them was a small wooden sewing box.
I recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to my grandmother.
Mom had kept buttons and needles in it for decades.
I pulled it down.
My hands were shaking.
Inside were spools of thread.
Buttons.
A tiny pair of scissors.
And underneath everything, wrapped in an old dish towel, was a thick brown envelope.
My name was written across the front.
NATALIE CARTER.
Harrison exhaled slowly.
“Don’t open it yet.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because if these documents are what I think they might be, I want the condition recorded before we handle them.”
He took photographs of the envelope from several angles.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
I opened it.
The first page made no sense.
It appeared to be a property document.
I read the heading.
Then the address.
My address.
The house.
I looked lower.
There was my full legal name.
Natalie Elise Carter.
And beneath it was my signature.
Except I had never signed this document.
“Harrison.”
He took the page.
His eyes moved rapidly across it.
Then stopped.
“Where did this come from?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
He flipped to the second page.
Then the third.
His expression became colder with each one.
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Harrison.”
“This appears to be an attempt to establish authorization to transfer an interest in the property.”
My stomach dropped.
“Transfer it to whom?”
He turned the page toward me.
I read the name.
JULIAN BENNETT.
For a moment, the hallway seemed to tilt.
“He tried to take my house?”
Harrison’s voice was careful.
“If these documents were actually submitted or used, we need to determine exactly what was done.”
“But that signature isn’t mine.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I have six years of authenticated documents containing your signature.”
He pointed toward mine on the page.
“And I’ve seen you sign documents in person.”
I looked closer.
It resembled my signature.
Very closely.
But one curve was wrong.
The final stroke was too long.
Someone had practiced.
Someone had copied it.
Then Harrison turned another page.
A photocopy of my passport.
I felt sick.
“How did he get this?”
“Did your mother have copies of your documents?”
“One.”
“Where?”
“In a fireproof document box downstairs.”
“Who knew the code?”
“Mom.”
I stopped.
“And Khloe.”
Harrison said nothing.
I kept going.
There were bank forms.
Authorization forms.
Copies of utility statements.
A printout containing information about my overseas employment.
And then I reached the final document.
I recognized the logo.
It belonged to the company that managed one of my investment accounts.
At the bottom was another signature.
Mine.
Fake again.
Beside it was a handwritten date.
Four months earlier.
I had been in Dubai that day.
I knew because it had been the day of our largest contract presentation of the year.
I had spent fourteen hours inside an office nearly eight thousand miles away.
There would be records.
Security footage.
Passport records.
Flight records.
Dozens of witnesses.
Whoever had done this had chosen the worst possible date to pretend I had signed something in Texas.
Harrison saw it too.
“This,” he said quietly, “could become very important.”
Footsteps sounded behind us.
Khloe stood at the end of the hallway.
Her face was white.
She had apparently been allowed upstairs with the deputy behind her.
Then she saw the papers.
“Oh God.”
I turned.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew about these.”
“I knew there were papers. I didn’t know what they were.”
“Mom confronted Julian about them.”
Khloe nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her chin trembled.
“Because he said it wasn’t real.”
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“He forged my signature, Khloe.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“Then what did you think he was doing?”
“He said you were eventually going to give Mom the house anyway.”
“So?”
“He said it made sense to get everything organized.”
“Organized?”
My voice rose.
“You thought putting my husband’s name—”
I stopped.
“No.”
I stared at her.
“Your husband’s name on my property was organization?”
She began crying again.
“He told me you agreed.”
“Did you ever ask me?”
No answer.
“Did you call me once?”
“I was scared.”
“Of me?”
Her eyes moved toward the stairs.
“No.”
That answer silenced me.
Harrison closed the envelope.
“Khloe, I strongly recommend that you stop discussing specific details until you understand your own position.”
She stared at him.
“My position?”
“Your name appears on financial transfers. You’ve acknowledged knowledge of documents involving property you knew belonged to your sister. There may be considerably more we haven’t seen.”
Her knees seemed to weaken.
“I didn’t forge anything.”
“Then preserve every message, email, photograph, bank record, and document you have.”
Julian shouted from downstairs.
“KHLOE!”
She flinched.
Not slightly.
Her entire body reacted.
I saw it.
So did Harrison.
I walked to her.
“How long have you been afraid of him?”
She shook her head.
“I’m not.”
“Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
“How long?”
Her voice broke.
“About a year.”
My anger toward her didn’t disappear.
But something else entered beside it.
Fear.
“What happened a year ago?”
She covered her mouth.
Then she whispered, “He lost his job.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“He told everyone he was consulting.”
“He isn’t?”
She shook her head.
“He hasn’t worked in eleven months.”
That explained the money.
The parties.
The SUV.
The sports car.
The clothes.
But not everything.
“Then where did he get the money?”
Khloe looked at the envelope in Harrison’s hand.
My stomach turned.
“Khloe.”
She whispered, “From us.”
“What does that mean?”
“From Mom.”
I stared at her.
“And?”
She began crying harder.
“From you.”
My skin went cold.
Harrison stepped forward.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You need to think carefully.”
“I really don’t know.”
“Thousands?”
She nodded.
“Tens of thousands?”
Another nod.
“More than fifty thousand?”
Khloe closed her eyes.
Then nodded again.
I felt the wall behind me and leaned against it.
“How much, Khloe?”
“I think…”
She swallowed.
“I think it might be over two hundred thousand.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Harrison’s face changed.
“That doesn’t match the transfers we identified.”
“I know.”
“Then where did the rest come from?”
Khloe looked at me.
“There’s another account.”
“What account?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Whose name?”
She hesitated.
“Natalie’s.”
I straightened.
“I don’t have another account here.”
“I know.”
My blood ran cold.
Harrison stepped closer.
“Explain.”
Khloe’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Julian opened something using Natalie’s information.”
Harrison became completely still.
“What kind of account?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“Maybe eight months ago.”
“Which institution?”
“I never saw it.”
I walked toward her.
“How do you know it exists?”
“Because I heard him arguing on the phone about it.”
“With whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
Khloe looked toward the stairs again.
“He said they needed more time before the real Natalie came home.”
Nobody moved.
Then Harrison pulled out his phone.
“I’m calling my financial investigator.”
But before he could dial, the deputy downstairs shouted.
“Mr. Bennett! Stop!”
Something crashed.
Khloe screamed.
We ran toward the stairs.
Julian had knocked over a table.
The deputy was moving toward him.
But Julian wasn’t trying to escape anymore.
He was standing beside the fireplace holding something he had pulled from behind a framed photograph.
A small black device.
Harrison stopped halfway down the stairs.
“What is that?”
Julian smiled.
It was the first time he had smiled since the SUVs arrived.
“You people think you found everything.”
Then he threw the device into his glass of scotch.
The deputy grabbed his wrist.
Too late.
The device disappeared beneath the amber liquid.
Julian laughed.
I looked at Harrison.
“What did he just destroy?”
Harrison stared at the glass.
“I don’t know.”
Khloe did.
She whispered from behind me.
“The backup drive.”
Julian’s smile vanished.
I turned toward her.
“Backup of what?”
She stared at her husband.
Then she said, “The cameras.”
My heart started pounding.
“What cameras?”
Khloe’s face went gray.
“The ones Julian put around the house.”
I looked toward the ceiling.
Harrison did the same.
“Security cameras?”
Khloe shook her head.
“Not exactly.”
Then she pointed toward the hallway leading to the small room where my mother had been forced to sleep.
“There was one in Mom’s room.”
My stomach dropped.
“And Julian kept recordings.”
I could barely speak.
“Recordings of what?”
Khloe looked at me with tears running down her face.
“I think that’s why your mother was so afraid.”
And downstairs, with the deputy gripping his arm, Julian finally stopped pretending this was just a family argument….
