Chapter 10 - The Letter With My Signature
The suspension notice appeared on Hawthorne's parent portal at 4:17 p.m.
It was accompanied by a letter on my company's stationery.
The letter instructed the academy to pause student meals until an internal financial review was complete.
At the bottom was a signature that looked remarkably like mine.
Except I had never signed it.
Naomi compared the file to our document archive.
Our letterhead was genuine, but the signature image had been copied from an old donor acknowledgment.
Miriam told me to report the suspected forgery and avoid accusing any individual without evidence.
We did exactly that.
Then we sent a corrected notice to the headmaster, board, food vendor, and every family address the academy had authorized us to contact.
The message was simple: the donor had not requested suspension, and funds remained available for eligible meals.
I offered an immediate bridge payment directly to the independent food vendor, subject to a written agreement ensuring every student would be fed.
The vendor's owner, Peter Lyle, called within an hour.
His voice shook.
“We've been told those payments would violate our contract.”
“By whom?”
“Dr. Voss.”
Miriam asked him to preserve the instruction in writing.
Peter said he would.
Late that night Naomi discovered that the forged letter had been uploaded from an administrator account assigned to the school board office.
It didn't identify the person who had used the account.
But the account had also approved several payments to Wren Family Consulting.
I sat alone at my desk with the false letter in front of me.
My signature looked casual and confident.
Whoever had copied it wanted the parents to believe I'd cut off their children to protect my reputation.
Then a second document arrived in my inbox.
It was a draft press release, not yet published.
Its headline read: DONOR ADMITS FAILURE OF MEAL PROGRAM.
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The release was scheduled for the next morning.
