Chapter 3
The police came quietly.
That disappointed Eleanor.
She wanted drama she could control.
Instead, officers entered, listened to Sarah, photographed my cheek, collected the recording, and asked Eleanor to step into the hallway.
She refused.
One officer said, “Ma’am, this is not optional.”
Her pearls trembled against her throat.
Julian tried to stay.
Sarah blocked him.
“My client is requesting no contact.”
“She is my wife.”
“She is my client.”
Victoria sat in a chair, white-faced, clutching the coat around her body.
I looked at her.
“Was this worth it?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t know about the baby.”
Hazel stirred against me.
I laughed once.
“You came into a maternity ward wearing my husband’s coat and thought the baby was the problem?”
She looked away.
Sarah leaned close.
“Gen, I need to show you something.”
She opened her tablet.
A scanned document filled the screen.
My father’s signature.
Then Julian’s.
Then Eleanor’s.
A transfer agreement dated three weeks before my father’s fatal heart attack.
“This is forged,” I said immediately.
“Yes.”
My father had never signed anything without telling me.
Never.
Not after Mom died.
Not after I took over his bookkeeping at twenty-two.
Not after he made me promise Vance Development would stay independent.
“What does it transfer?”
Sarah’s eyes softened.
“Development rights on the lake property.”
My lake house.
The one they had just tried to steal again.
I looked at Julian through the glass wall.
He was speaking quickly to an officer.
His hands were moving.
His face was desperate.
“He knew.”
Sarah did not answer.
She did not have to.
My surgeon entered then, flanked by a neurologist.
They looked furious.
The neurologist said, “Mrs. Vance, no one from this hospital ordered competency concerns.”
Sarah’s expression changed.
“Someone tried?”
The doctor nodded.
“A request was filed under my name twenty minutes ago.”
Julian.
Eleanor.
Or both.
The nurse handed Sarah a printed copy.
My eyes went to the signature.
Dr. Martin Vale.
But the doctor in front of me was Dr. Maya Chen.
“Who is Martin Vale?” I asked.
Sarah went very still.
“My God.”
“What?”
May you like
She looked at the forged document again.
“Martin Vale signed your father’s death certificate.”
