Chapter 6 - LAUREN’S HANDWRITING
I wanted to be wrong.
For once, I wanted a coincidence.
I wanted the curled letters on the forged acknowledgment to belong to a stranger.
But I had watched Lauren write my name on birthday cards for twenty years.
I knew the way she shaped an E.
I knew the exaggerated loop in her capital S.
I knew the tiny upward flick at the end of a lowercase a.
The signature on the beneficiary form looked like mine only from a distance.
Up close, it looked like Lauren pretending to be me.
Daniel saw it too.
He said nothing.
Maya placed the form and the basement note side by side.
“Similarity is not proof,” she said.
“I know.”
“But it is enough to justify preserving known samples.”
Grandpa looked at me.
“Do you have any?”
I almost laughed.
“Probably a hundred.”
Lauren loved handwritten thank-you notes when she believed rich people might see them.
She had even written one to Daniel’s parents after our engagement party.
Daniel pulled out his phone.
“My mother keeps everything.”
Within ten minutes, his mother sent photographs of three cards.
Maya enlarged them on her tablet.
The similarities were obvious.
Not perfect.
Not conclusive.
But obvious.
Grandpa’s face became unreadable.
“Why would Lauren forge Emma’s signature?”
I thought of my sister at seventeen.
She had been twenty then.
Old enough to know what a signature meant.
Old enough to understand that writing someone else’s name on a financial document was not a harmless family favor.
My phone rang.
Lauren.
All four of us looked at the screen.
“Answer it,” Maya said.
I put it on speaker.
“Hello?”
Lauren did not greet me.
“Paige is lying to you.”
I glanced at Maya.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“Be specific.”
“You think she suddenly became your friend because she hid some files?”
“I never said she was my friend.”
Lauren gave a sharp laugh.
“Good.”
“Because she is doing exactly what she always does.”
“Which is?”
“Making sure someone else gets blamed first.”
I looked at the forged signature.
“Is there something you are worried about being blamed for?”
Silence.
Only a second.
But enough.
Lauren’s voice changed.
“What did you find?”
“That is an interesting question.”
“Emma.”
“What did you sign for Mom in 2014?”
The line went completely quiet.
Daniel stopped breathing beside me.
Grandpa’s eyes closed.
Maya wrote something on a legal pad.
Lauren finally whispered, “I didn’t know what it was.”
There it was.
Not a denial.
A confession trying to become an excuse.
“What did you sign?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Mom put papers in front of me all the time.”
“With my name on them?”
“I was helping her.”
“You were twenty.”
“So?”
“So you knew you were not Emma Stone.”
Lauren’s breathing became uneven.
“She said Grandpa needed acknowledgments before he released more money.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“What money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
“College money.”
“For who?”
“I don’t know.”
I heard myself laugh.
It did not sound like me.
“You forged my signature so Mom could get more money, and you never asked where it came from?”
“She said it belonged to the family.”
“No.”
My voice turned cold.
“She told you my name was on the form.”
Lauren said nothing.
“That means you knew it was connected to me.”
“Emma, you were always Grandpa’s favorite.”
The sentence hit me so hard I almost dropped the phone.
Not because it hurt.
Because it revealed the logic they had used.
Grandpa loved me.
Therefore anything he gave me was unfair.
Therefore taking it was correction, not theft.
Lauren continued before I could answer.
“You had opportunities we didn’t.”
I stared at the phone.
“What opportunities?”
“You were smart.”
I actually laughed.
“You stole from me because I was smart?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It is exactly what you said.”
“I mean you didn’t need the help the way we did.”
Paige had private school paid in full.
Lauren had private school paid in full.
Both had tuition paid.
Both had weddings paid.
Both had cars, vacations, and money for apartments.
I had worked three jobs in college while living on scholarships and loans.
I pressed my fingers against my temple.
“Did you write the note in the basement?”
“What note?”
“YOU FOUND IT.”
Silence again.
Then Lauren whispered, “No.”
This time I believed the fear in her voice.
“Did you go to the office last night?”
“No.”
“Did Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Dad?”
Another pause.
“I saw him leave the house.”
“What time?”
“Around nine-thirty.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?”
“Because Mom told me to stay out of it.”
That did not sound like my mother.
Margaret preferred witnesses when she was performing innocence.
“Where is she now?”
“Upstairs.”
“You’re at their house?”
“Yes.”
Maya shook her head sharply.
Do not go there.
I had not planned to.
Then Lauren said, “She’s shredding things.”
Every person in the library moved at once.
“What?”
“I heard the shredder running in Dad’s office.”
“Lauren, listen to me.”
Maya leaned toward the phone.
“Do not touch anything.”
Lauren startled.
“Who is that?”
“My lawyer.”
“Oh, God.”
“For once, Lauren, listen.”
I spoke slowly.
“If Mom is destroying financial records, do not interfere.”
“Take your phone.”
“Walk outside.”
“Go somewhere safe.”
“She’ll know I told you.”
“She already knows you signed my name.”
A door slammed in the background.
Lauren gasped.
Then Mom’s voice sounded from somewhere close.
“Who are you talking to?”
Lauren hung up.
I immediately called back.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Daniel grabbed his keys.
“We call the police.”
Maya was already dialing.
“Not for shredding,” she said.
“For a welfare check if Lauren says she feels unsafe.”
“She didn’t.”
“Then we cannot invent it.”
I swore under my breath.
Grandpa stood.
“I’m going there.”
“No,” Maya and I said together.
Grandpa glared at us.
“That is my daughter in that house.”
“And my parents,” I said.
“That is exactly why none of us should walk in without a plan.”
Maya pointed at me.
“Correct.”
She looked at Grandpa.
“If records are being destroyed after litigation is reasonably foreseeable, that can matter later.”
“But barging in and causing a confrontation could make preservation harder.”
Grandpa sat back down reluctantly.
I texted Lauren.
ARE YOU SAFE?
No response.
I called Paige.
She answered groggily.
“What now?”
“Is Lauren at Mom and Dad’s?”
“She was earlier.”
“She says Mom is shredding records.”
Paige became instantly awake.
“Then Lauren needs to get out.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom knows she forged those forms.”
I looked at Maya.
“How do you know that?”
Paige exhaled.
“Because I was there when she did it.”
My body went cold.
“You watched her sign my name.”
“I didn’t understand what it was then.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Stop using age as an excuse.”
“I’m not.”
Her voice sharpened.
“I’m telling you I was there.”
“What exactly happened?”
“Mom had a stack of forms on the dining-room table.”
“She told Lauren some signatures needed to match yours because Grandpa was being difficult.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I laughed.”
The honesty silenced me.
Paige swallowed.
“I thought it was funny that Mom was making Lauren copy your handwriting.”
“I thought it was some stupid permission form.”
“Later, Dad came home and saw what they were doing.”
“What did he do?”
“He got furious.”
“At Mom?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Paige’s voice dropped.
“He said, ‘You said we would never use the girls.’”
The girls.
Plural.
I looked at the files spread across the library table.
“What did Mom say?”
“She told him it was too late to grow a conscience.”
Grandpa closed his eyes.
Daniel stared at the floor.
Maya wrote quickly.
I asked, “What did Dad mean by use the girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“Paige.”
“I swear.”
Then her voice changed.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“You found Lauren’s signature.”
“Yes.”
“Did you find mine?”
I looked at the unopened Paige folder in the canvas bag.
“No.”
A terrible silence stretched between us.
Paige whispered, “Then you haven’t found everything.”
I opened her folder.
The expense ledger was on top.
Beneath it were property records.
Below those was a photocopy of a notarized affidavit.
The signature at the bottom was mine.
But the handwriting was not Lauren’s.
It was Paige’s.
I held the phone tighter.
“What did you sign?”
Paige did not answer.
“What did you sign for them?”
May you like
Her voice broke.
“I signed something saying you were mentally incompetent.”
