Chapter 3 - THE FORGED SIGNATURE
Beth instinctively crossed her arms, hiding her left hand beneath her right elbow.
The guests who hadn’t already fled to the porch were now frozen in place. Sarah, my sister, walked over and snatched the photograph from my hand. She let out a sharp gasp, her eyes darting from the image to Beth’s face.
“You sick hypocrite,” Sarah hissed.
Dennis lunged forward to grab the photo, but Max let out a low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the floorboards. The hair on the dog's back stood up, his teeth bared in a silent warning.
Dennis stepped back, his eyes darting nervously to the dog. “Put the picture down, Sarah. It’s an old photo. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means you proposed to my best friend eight years ago!” I shouted, the dam finally breaking. “While I was upstairs recovering from pneumonia! While I was raising our daughter! You told me my mother’s ring was lost at the hospital!”
Beth’s face lost all its color. She looked at Dennis, her voice wavering. “Dennis, you told me she knew about the ring. You said she gave it to you to sell so we could start our life together.”
I stared at her. “You thought I gave my husband my dead mother’s ring to propose to you?”
Beth shrank back against the dining room wall. “He told me you two had an arrangement! He said you stayed together for Ellie, but that you knew about us. He said the quitclaim deed was part of your separation agreement!”
My father slammed his hand down on the table, making the fine china rattle. “There is no separation agreement! She never signed a quitclaim deed!”
He looked directly at Dennis, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly register. “Who signed that paper at the bank, Dennis?”
Dennis didn’t answer. He was staring at the front door, looking like a cornered animal calculating its escape route.
Ellie stepped in front of him. She was only twenty, but in that moment, she looked exactly like her grandfather.
“I’ll tell you who signed it,” Ellie said, her voice shaking with rage. She pulled her smartphone from her pocket. “Because I found the paperwork in his home office yesterday when I was looking for a stamp.”
She swiped on her screen and held it up for all of us to see. It was a clear, high-resolution photo of a legal document.
Quitclaim Deed. Transfer of Ownership.
At the bottom, on the line meant for my signature, was a flawless forgery of my handwriting.
But right next to it, under the section for the Notary Public’s seal and signature, was a name that made the breath leave my lungs.
Elizabeth Turner.
Beth’s maiden name.
The room began to spin. “You notarized the forged deed?” I whispered, looking at the woman I had trusted with my deepest secrets since college. “You helped him steal my house?”
Beth shook her head frantically, tears finally spilling over her cheeks. “No! No, Marianne, I swear! I never signed that! I’m not even a registered notary anymore! My license expired ten years ago!”
“Then how is your stamp on the paper?!” Sarah yelled.
“I don’t know!” Beth cried, turning to Dennis. “Dennis, tell them! Tell them I didn’t know about the forgery!”
Dennis remained completely silent. His eyes were cold, calculating, devoid of any of the panic Beth was displaying. He looked at Beth not as a lover, but as a liability.
“It’s your stamp, Beth,” Dennis said quietly, throwing her straight under the bus. “Your signature. If they take this to the police, you’re the one going to federal prison for real estate fraud.”
Beth let out a choked sob, stumbling backward until she hit the hallway wall. “You set me up. You used my old stamp to forge her signature, and now you’re framing me.”
“Prove it,” Dennis challenged smoothly. He looked back at me, regaining his arrogant composure. “You want to call the cops, Marianne? Go ahead. They’ll arrest your best friend for fraud. And while you’re dragging this out in court for the next five years, I’ll drain every joint bank account we have to pay my lawyers. You’ll have nothing.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. “I’m going to a hotel. Beth, if you’re smart, you’ll pack your bags and leave town before she calls the authorities.”
He turned and walked toward the front door.
“Stop right there!” my father commanded, stepping into his path.
Dennis smirked. “Move, old man. You can’t stop me.”
“I’m not trying to stop you,” my father said, his voice terrifyingly calm. He reached out and grabbed the lapel of Dennis’s jacket.
With a swift, precise movement, my father reached his other hand into Dennis’s inner breast pocket.
Dennis yelled and tried to shove him away, but my father stepped back, holding something in his weathered hand.
It was a heavy, silver pocket watch. My father’s pocket watch. The one he’d received for his retirement, which had gone missing from his nightstand three weeks ago.
“You really are a thief,” my father said in disgust.
But as my father opened the casing of the watch to check the dial, his expression froze.
He didn’t look angry anymore. He looked horrified.
“Arthur?” I asked, stepping forward. “What is it?”
My father turned the open pocket watch toward me.
The glass face had been smashed. And tucked inside the casing, folded into a tiny square, was a receipt.
It was a pawnbroker’s ticket.
“He didn’t steal the watch to keep it,” my father whispered, his voice trembling. “He stole it to replace what he already pawned.”
He handed me the tiny receipt. I unfolded it, my hands shaking.
Item received: 18k Gold Antique Heirloom Bracelet. Engraved: ‘For My Everything’.
My stomach plummeted. It was my mother’s bracelet. The only piece of jewelry she had left me besides her ring.
May you like
I looked up, my eyes locking onto Beth’s wrist.
Under the cuff of her elegant silk blouse, catching the light of the chandelier, was a flash of heavy, antique gold.
