Chapter 5 - A FATHER'S SIGNATURE
Arthur Mercer arrived at Mara Quinn's office in a wrinkled coat and a tie he had fastened badly. Paige almost failed to recognize him. During her childhood he had seemed to fill every room with confident explanations. Now he stood beside the reception desk like a man who expected a bill he could not pay.
Mara had arranged the meeting under strict conditions: Arthur would come alone, the conversation would be recorded with everyone's consent, and Paige could end it at any time. An investigator retained by Mara waited nearby. Gabriel knew only that Paige was going out for a personal appointment. She had refused to make him part of this reckoning.
Arthur's eyes filled when he saw her. "Honey—"
"Please don't call me that. Sit down."
He obeyed. Paige noticed how his hands moved toward hers and then stopped. She wondered whether he had finally learned that affection could not be demanded.
"I didn't know Colin would be violent after the wedding," Arthur began.
"He was violent before it. I told you."
"I thought he was getting help."
"You thought his money would get you help. Let's start with something less convenient. Who approved a tracking account in my name?"
Arthur closed his eyes. "Richard handled that."
"Your company signed the invoices."
"He said it was to keep you safe. Colin was frantic after you disappeared. He said you might harm yourself."
Paige felt a sharp, clean anger. "I was hiding because he put his hands around my throat. You knew that. You watched me leave with a bag of clothes and bruises."
"I was afraid," Arthur whispered.
"So was I. Only one of us sold the other's location."
Mara let the silence stand. Arthur looked at the recorder, then at the floor.
"Richard paid the private investigators through the firm," he admitted. "They told me where you worked, what apartment you rented. I didn't give Colin your address at first. Later I did."
Paige remembered a man in a dark car parked outside her Oregon apartment, the unexplained calls, the fear she had blamed on trauma. The terror had been real. Her father's hands had reached across the country to keep it alive.
"When did you know about the Bride Registry?" she asked.
His head jerked up. "I don't know what that is."
She placed a printed page between them. The fourth row showed her initials; the fifth showed Eva Reyes. Arthur's initials appeared in the approval column.
"I approved financing schedules," he said rapidly. "I didn't know they were putting women's names on them."
"Your daughter's name was on one."
"I thought your marriage would cancel the debt."
"How does a wedding cancel twelve million dollars?"
Arthur opened his mouth, then shut it. Paige waited until he answered.
"Your mother's trust held controlling interests in three properties Richard needed for the warehouse network. The trust instruments required a co-signature from a family beneficiary. Colin said that if you married him, your marital signature could be used as the second approval."
"My signature?"
"He planned to have you sign the trust papers after the ceremony."
Paige remembered Colin joking about a surprise honeymoon paperwork session. She had dismissed it as another cruel way of reminding her who controlled her time. Now she understood.
"Was Mom's signature forged after she died?"
Arthur covered his face. "Yes."
Paige sat perfectly still. The confession hurt differently from every previous betrayal. It reached back into the years when she had still believed her father was keeping Catherine's belongings safe.
"Did you forge it?"
"I allowed Richard's lawyers to prepare the documents. I signed the certifications."
"That's yes, Dad."
He began to cry. Paige felt nothing but an exhausted distance. She had once prayed for a confession because she thought she might forgive him if he finally told the truth. Now she knew forgiveness was not something he could purchase with tears.
"One more question," she said. "What happened at Harrow Point?"
Arthur's face changed. "That's not connected to Colin."
"Two people died there. One was seventeen. Your email said their apartment was preventing the sale."
"I didn't order a fire."
"I didn't ask whether you ordered it. I asked what happened."
He looked at Mara. "If I say anything, will you keep it confidential?"
"I represent Paige," Mara replied. "Not you. You should consult your own criminal attorney."
Arthur swallowed. "The night before the fire, Richard called. He said Carr's crew would clear the last occupied apartments. I told him the tenants had legal appeals pending. He said the appeals would become irrelevant by morning. I thought he meant they'd pay people to move. Afterward, he told me a heater had started the fire."
"Did you report that call?"
"No."
"Did you keep the message?"
"I deleted it."
Paige leaned back. "Then you're going to help recover the records. Through your own lawyer, with no conditions attached. If you want to do one decent thing, do it because Lillian and Noah matter, not because you're afraid I'll stop loving you."
Arthur began to speak, but she stood. She had heard enough for one day.
Outside the office, Paige sat on a bench with Mara while traffic moved through the damp city streets. Her hands were shaking. Mara offered to find a quieter room, but Paige wanted air.
"He told me enough to corroborate several documents," Mara said. "He didn't give us a complete account."
"He never does. He gives people the sentence he thinks will make them stop asking."
"What do you want next?"
Paige considered. "I want Eva found. I want the Harrow Point tenants to know what we're discovering. And I want the trust brought into an independent court before Richard takes another property."
"Those are concrete goals. We can work on them."
While Mara arranged the next legal steps, Paige visited a small diner alone except for the plainclothes investigator seated far enough away to let her breathe. She ordered a grilled cheese and tomato soup because it was the first meal she had chosen without hearing Colin's voice in her head. She finished everything. It made her cry more than Arthur's apology had.
She remained at the diner long enough to watch a father help his daughter count change for a slice of pie. The little girl argued that the tip should be bigger because the server had brought extra napkins. The father agreed without making a performance of his generosity. Paige had once thought all fathers became dangerous when their children contradicted them; the sight of an ordinary disagreement ending in laughter reminded her how narrow her world had become. She wrote a sentence in the notebook she carried everywhere: I can miss who Dad used to be without returning to who he is now. Then she closed the book and finished her tea.
Her phone rang just as she paid. Gabriel's name appeared on the screen. She considered refusing it, then answered.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm sitting in a diner. It's a very exciting act of rebellion."
"That sounds promising."
"My father admitted he helped them watch me. He certified my mother's forged signature."
Gabriel said nothing at first. "I'm sorry."
"I don't need you to punish him. I need him to tell the truth."
"Understood."
"Do you always agree with me?"
"No. But you haven't said anything I disagree with."
She heard someone speaking urgently in his background. "What's wrong?"
"Tomas has been suspended pending an audit. Some access logs don't match. I'm dealing with it."
"Tell me if it affects me. Don't decide it would upset me too much."
"I will."
The promise was tested sooner than either expected. When Paige returned to the estate, Helen was waiting near the kitchen door with a small envelope. It had arrived by courier addressed to Paige, with no return address and no security screening note.
Inside was a newspaper clipping about Catherine's death, yellowed at the edges. Across the article someone had written in red ink: SHE FOUND THE FIRST BRIDE.
Attached was a photograph of a young woman standing beside Catherine outside a courthouse eleven years ago. On the back was the name Beatrice Rowan.
Paige showed Mara the image. A search through old civil filings revealed that Beatrice, then twenty-three, had contested an unauthorized transfer of her family's land. The case was dismissed after she withdrew her claim. Six months later, she disappeared from public records.
Catherine had attended the hearing as a witness.
For years Paige had believed her mother died in an ordinary highway accident. Now the chronology suggested another reason someone might have wanted Catherine to stop asking questions.
"Can we find Beatrice?" Paige asked.
"We'll try," Mara answered. "But we need to be careful not to assume what happened to her."
Paige traced her mother's face in the photograph. She was smiling at Beatrice, one hand resting lightly on the younger woman's shoulder. Paige knew that expression. It was the look Catherine gave people who were frightened but trying not to show it.
She turned the photograph over again. Beneath the name, almost invisible in the fold, Catherine had written an address and a date: OCTOBER 18, 11 A.M.
May you like
The date had passed eleven years before.
The address belonged to a shuttered law office near the old courthouse. Paige circled it in her notebook. She had the strange feeling that her mother had left a trail not because she expected to die, but because she knew nobody powerful wanted her to finish following it.
