Chapter 3 - The Signature
The name hung in the air, sucking the oxygen out of the room. Lauren Harrison.
He was going to marry her. He had probably already filed for divorce behind my back, planning to drain the company accounts and vanish with my mother’s money while I was left picking up the pieces.
“Ellie, give me that!” Daniel snarled, stepping toward our thirteen-year-old daughter.
“Don’t you touch her!” I screamed, hiking up the skirt of my evening gown and sprinting up the stage steps.
I shoved my husband backward. He stumbled, his polished black shoes slipping on the scattered pearls of the mother-in-law he had despised. I stood between him and Ellie like a shield.
“It’s a mistake,” Daniel stammered, raising his hands, playing to the crowd. “It’s a corporate retreat, the travel agent messed up the names—”
“Stop lying!” Lauren suddenly shrieked from the floor.
She stood up, clutching a handful of loose pearls, her champagne dress stained with spilled wine from a tipped glass on the podium. Her beautiful, composed facade was entirely gone, replaced by a mask of sheer panic.
She glared at Daniel. “You told me she signed the release! You told me the company was entirely in your name now!”
“Shut up, Lauren!” Daniel hissed.
I turned to the mistress. “What release?”
Lauren laughed, a bitter, hysterical sound. “The asset transfer, you idiot. Daniel said you signed over the controlling shares to him last week. We were selling the company to the Vanguard Group on Monday and leaving the country.”
My stomach plummeted. I hadn’t signed anything. I hadn’t even seen corporate paperwork in six months.
“I never signed a transfer,” I said.
“Someone did,” Lauren snapped. “I saw the documents. The signature was notarized by your own accountant.”
My blood turned to ice.
I looked down from the stage to table four, where the company executives were seated. My eyes locked onto Sarah, my best friend of fifteen years, the woman who had been my maid of honor, the woman who handled all of Harrison Custom Homes’ internal finances.
Sarah was already out of her chair, her face ashen, clutching her purse to her chest. She was backing away toward the emergency exit.
“Sarah!” I yelled.
She flinched, gave me a look of pure, agonizing guilt, and bolted through the double doors.
“Call the police!” one of the bankers shouted. The room was descending into absolute chaos.
I turned back to Daniel. He looked like a cornered animal. Without another word, he turned and sprinted off the back of the stage, disappearing behind the heavy velvet curtains.
I started to chase him, but Ellie grabbed my hand.
“Mom, wait,” she said urgently.
She pressed the crumpled yellow plane ticket into my palm. But she also handed me something else. Something she had picked up from the floor when the pearls broke.
May you like
It was a small, heavy silver key.
“This was hidden inside the clasp with the ticket,” Ellie whispered, her eyes wide. “Grandma didn’t just leave you a video, Mom. She left us a map.”
