Chapter 7 - The Forger Had a Name
Priya assembled every questionable signature we could find and sent copies to a document examiner.
The examiner cautioned that scanned documents alone could not yield a definitive authentication.
Still, several signatures shared mechanical repetitions unusual in natural handwriting.
The final flourish ended at exactly the same angle.
The capital M began with an identical ink interruption.
Someone had not merely imitated me.
Someone appeared to have reused a reproduction of one of my real signatures.
Evelyn looked at the page and whispered, "They did it to me too."
I asked Claire whether the company had used signature stamps during my London trip.
She remembered an internal packet of authorizations delivered to the executive office the day after I flew out.
Eleanor had insisted they were urgent documents tied to the hotel opening.
One page bore my name, with the same flourish.
"Could you identify who prepared the packet?" Rebecca asked her.
Claire thought for a moment.
"Arthur Bell," she said.
Bell had been a junior associate at the family law firm.
He had resigned abruptly six years ago, moved to Indianapolis, and disappeared from our professional circles.
Our investigator located him working as a title examiner under his own name.
He agreed to meet after Rebecca assured him we wanted information, not an ambush.
Bell looked older than his photographs.
He sat with his hands wrapped around a paper cup and refused to look directly at me.
"I did not know about the children when the first authorization came through," he said.
"What about when you did know?" I asked.
He stared at the table.
"I should have said no."
Rebecca let him talk.
Bell described being ordered to assemble papers that would make Evelyn believe I had knowingly rejected her pregnancy.
He said Eleanor claimed the documents were necessary to avert a malicious paternity suit.
Later, when he learned Evelyn had delivered twins, he was asked to help establish financial accounts and prepare filings that preserved Eleanor's control over communications.
"Did you sign my name?" I asked.
"I prepared the template," he said.
"I did not apply the signature."
"Who did?"
He swallowed.
"I saw a scan on Eleanor's desk. I never saw the hand that put it there."
Rebecca asked whether he had records.
Bell nodded.
"I saved emails. I was afraid they'd say I acted alone."
He agreed to provide them through counsel, though he warned that he might face consequences for his own role.
As we stood, he caught my arm.
"There's something else," he said.
"Your mother did not begin with the children."
He handed Rebecca a photocopy of a letter on my father's personal stationery.
It was dated three weeks before my father died.
The opening line read: Eleanor, if you interfere with Marcus and Evelyn, I will change the trust.
My father had seen the danger before I had.
Bell looked ashamed.
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"She had been afraid of losing control long before Evelyn was pregnant," he said.
