Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN’s INK
Lorraine’s hand lunged across the white linen tablecloth, her manicured fingers clawing for the forged divorce papers.
She wasn’t fast enough.
Daniel’s hand slammed down, pinning the documents flat against the table. The crystal glasses rattled.
“Don’t touch them, Mom,” he warned, his voice a low, dangerous growl I had never heard in our twenty-one years of marriage.
The private dining room at the country club was completely paralyzed. Twenty-six relatives—aunts, uncles, cousins who had been drinking champagne and laughing five minutes ago—were now frozen in a suffocating silence. Even the waitstaff hovering by the oak doors had stopped breathing.
Mr. Harris, the gray-haired estate attorney, stood calmly at the head of the table. He didn't flinch when Lorraine’s hand recoiled.
“Arthur Pendleton prepared those documents,” Mr. Harris said softly, his voice carrying clearly over the silence. “He was my law partner. And as I just stated, Arthur passed away of a sudden heart attack eleven years ago this coming October.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Eleven years ago.
October.
My mind spun backward, catching on the jagged edges of my own memory. Eleven years ago, I was completely bald. I was thirty-four years old, weighing ninety-eight pounds, vomiting in the downstairs bathroom while poison dripped through my veins to kill the breast cancer trying to take my life.
I looked at the thick stack of papers under my husband’s hand.
Why would divorce papers have been drawn up while I was fighting for my life?
“This is ridiculous,” Lorraine snapped, though her voice trembled. She straightened her pearl necklace, trying to summon the aristocratic arrogance she had used to intimidate me since the day Daniel introduced us. “Robert, you are confused. These are new documents.”
“They are not, Lorraine,” Mr. Harris replied gently. He adjusted his glasses. “Arthur had a very specific habit of using a double-indent on his signature lines. It was a typewriter quirk he never dropped, even when we moved to computers. The formatting is his. The legal boilerplate is out of date. Someone took an old, unfiled file, updated the dates with a modern printer, and forged the signatures.”
Mr. Harris turned his steady gaze to my husband. “Daniel. Did you ask Arthur Pendleton to draft divorce papers eleven years ago?”
The room seemed to tilt.
I looked at Daniel. His face was the color of ash. His eyes were wide, darting from the lawyer to the papers, and finally, to me.
“No,” Daniel whispered. “I swear to God, Claire. I never spoke to Arthur about a divorce.”
“Then who did?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Before Daniel could answer, a chair scraped violently across the hardwood floor.
It was Mark, Daniel’s younger brother.
Mark had been sweating profusely for the last ten minutes. He pushed himself away from the table, his face flushed. He wouldn't look at his mother.
“Tell them, Mom,” Mark said, his voice thick with panic.
Lorraine whipped her head toward her youngest son. “Mark, sit down and shut your mouth this instant.”
“I can’t do this anymore!” Mark yelled, rubbing his face. “I can’t! You told me it was just a pressure tactic! You told me you just wanted to scare Claire into signing away the lake house!”
“Mark!” Lorraine shrieked.
Mark looked at me, tears welling in his eyes. “Claire, I’m so sorry. She didn’t just find those papers. She bought them.”
My stomach bottomed out. “Bought them?”
“From Arthur’s old paralegal,” Mark confessed, his voice breaking. “The paralegal kept copies of old, unexecuted files. Mom paid her five thousand dollars to dig into Dad’s old private files and find something, anything, she could use against you.”
The room erupted into gasps.
“My father’s files?” Daniel demanded, rising from his chair. “What does Dad have to do with this?”
Mr. Harris sighed heavily. “Because, Daniel, Arthur didn't draft those papers for you. He drafted them for your father. Your father was terrified of what would happen to Claire and the children if you didn't survive that difficult period in your marriage.”
I felt like I had been punched in the chest.
“Dad loved Claire,” Daniel said, his voice shaking. “Why would he draft divorce papers?”
“He didn't,” a new voice said.
It was Sarah, Mark’s wife. She was digging furiously into Lorraine’s designer handbag, which sat on the empty chair between them.
“What are you doing?!” Lorraine screamed, lunging for Sarah.
Sarah easily deflected the older woman, pulling out a heavy, tarnished silver pocket watch. She threw it onto the center of the table. It landed with a heavy, metallic thud next to the fake divorce papers.
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I recognized it instantly. It was my father-in-law’s pocket watch. The one we were told had been buried with him.
“Tell them what you really found in Dad’s desk, Lorraine,” Sarah said, her voice dripping with disgust. “Tell them why you’re so desperate to steal a lake house that doesn’t even belong to you.”
