Her lips pressed together.
“Applying to graduate school?”
“We wanted you nearby,” she whispered.
The honesty of it was more brutal than another lie.
“Why?”
“Because families stay close.”
“No. Why did you need me close?”
Dad’s fist struck the table.
“Enough.”
The candles flickered.
He pointed at Grandpa.
“You come home after being absent for nearly a year and turn us against each other over decisions you never had to make. Claire was spiraling. We were keeping her grounded.”
“I was not spiraling.”
“You were emotional. Impulsive.”
“I applied for jobs.”
“In other cities.”
“Because the jobs here kept rejecting me.”
Mason laughed bitterly.
“You never considered that maybe you weren’t as impressive as Grandpa told you.”
Grandpa rose slowly.
The room seemed to shrink around him.
“You will not speak to her that way.”
Mason’s confidence faltered, but only briefly.
“You always favored her.”
“I trusted her.”
“You handed her a company she didn’t even know existed.”
“Because your father promised to complete the transfer properly.”
Dad glared at him. “And we protected it.”
“By forging her signature?”
“Nothing has been proven.”
Grandpa turned to Detective Price.
The detective removed a second plastic sleeve.
Inside was an enlarged handwriting comparison. My forged signature appeared on one side. On the other were several signatures from someone else in the room.
The same peculiar break appeared in the middle initial.
The same pressure marks darkened the downward strokes.
Mason stopped pacing.
Brooke stared at him with horror.
Detective Price did not accuse him. He merely laid the comparison on the table.
Mason’s voice dropped.
“Handwriting analysis isn’t perfect.”
“No,” the detective said. “But bank records are usually clearer.”
He placed a financial statement beside the signature comparison.
A wire transfer for $4.8 million had entered an account connected to my parents.
Three days later, nearly half of it had gone to my father’s construction company.
Another payment had been sent directly to Mason.
But the largest transfer had gone somewhere none of us expected.
The recipient was Brooke.
### Part 5
Brooke stared at the bank statement as though it had crawled onto the table by itself.
“That’s not my account.”
Mason closed his eyes.
Detective Price pointed to the routing information.
“It was opened using your Social Security number and a copy of your driver’s license.”
“I’ve never seen this.”
“Mason,” I said.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
Dad’s anger shifted instantly.
“You told us the funds were secure.”
“They were.”
“Then why are they in an account under your wife’s name?”
“It was temporary.”
Brooke stepped toward him.
“You used my identity?”
“Don’t make this worse.”
Her face twisted. “I’m making it worse?”
Mom began crying openly.
“We were in an impossible situation.”
The phrase sounded practiced, as though they had repeated it to one another until it became permission.
Grandpa remained standing.
“What situation justifies selling property you did not own?”
Dad looked at the table rather than at him.
“My company was failing.”
I had known Whitmore Construction was struggling. Dad’s contracts had grown smaller over the past two years. Trucks disappeared from the parking lot. Employees who had attended our childhood birthdays stopped coming around.
Whenever I asked, Dad said the industry was changing.
Now he told the truth in fragments.
A hospital project had gone over budget. A supplier had filed liens. Two lenders demanded payment within the same month. If Whitmore Construction collapsed, Dad said, forty employees would lose their jobs.
“So you sold Red River,” Grandpa said.
Dad’s mouth tightened.
“We borrowed against it.”
“The records show a sale.”
“We intended to buy it back.”
“With what money?”
Dad had no answer.
Mason dropped into his chair.
“The buyer approached us when the bank started threatening foreclosure.”
“Grant Holloway?” I asked.
Brooke shook her head sharply.
“No. I introduced Grant to Mason.”
Everyone looked at her.
She seemed to realize the words had escaped before she could stop them.
“You knew him?” I asked.
“Professionally. His family owns food-processing facilities.”
Mason reached for her again. She moved away.
“He said he was looking for cold-storage assets,” Brooke continued. “Mason asked me to arrange a conversation. He told me your grandfather had authorized the sale.”
Grandpa’s expression became almost blank.
“I did not.”
Brooke looked sick.
“I didn’t know about Claire.”
“You came to my graduation party,” I said. “You knew Grandpa gave me something.”
“I thought it was money in a trust.”
“You accepted a transfer worth seven hundred thousand dollars.”
“I didn’t accept anything.”
Detective Price tapped the statement.
“The account paid for your house.”
Brooke went completely still.
Their home had been purchased eighteen months earlier. Five bedrooms. A pool. White stone countertops Mom described to everyone who would listen.
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