Chapter 4 - The Signature in Black Ink

Malcolm placed the folder on a side table as if delivering a dinner menu.

“Celeste called me,” he said. “I thought facts might help.”

“Then start with why my daughter was afraid,” Gideon said.

Malcolm, fifty-eight, neat as a bank statement, adjusted his cuff. “Lydia had grown suspicious and made several unfounded accusations. You authorized an internal review.”

“I authorized no such thing.”

Malcolm opened the folder. An authorization letter lay on top, bearing Gideon's signature and a date three days before Lydia died.

Gideon stared. He remembered signing a stack of documents at a hospital after a fall. Celeste had said the papers concerned insurance and payroll.

“What did that letter actually do?” he asked.

“It placed the foundation's historical records under a temporary confidentiality restriction.”

“For ten years?” Nora asked.

Malcolm didn't answer.

Mateo leaned closer to inspect the signature. “Sir, the date was added with a different pen.”

Malcolm shut the folder. “Security isn't qualified to interpret legal documents.”

“Neither is a man who keeps his thumb over the last paragraph,” Mateo replied.

He lifted the folder from Malcolm's hands. Below his signature was a provision transferring authority over disputed scholarship accounts to a committee chaired by Celeste. It also allowed the committee to restrict access to beneficiary records.

“You used my name,” Gideon said.

“We protected the foundation from scandal,” Celeste snapped. “You were grieving. Somebody had to make decisions.”

“Lydia wasn't dead when I signed this.”

Ivy had been listening from Nora's side. She looked at Gideon.

“Did you think my mom was lying?”

Gideon bent so they were eye to eye. “Yes.”

Nora went still.

“I was wrong,” he added. “And that answer is going to haunt me.”

Ivy stared at him for a moment, then asked the question he deserved.

“Did you ever call her back?”

“No.”

A sharp click came from above the door. The security camera's small green light went dark.

Mateo touched his earpiece. “Control room? Confirm that feed.”

No response.

The chandeliers blinked. Darkness swallowed the piano.

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Nora grabbed for Ivy, but her fingers closed on empty air.

When the emergency lights came on, the little girl's chair was vacant—and the service door was swinging shut.