Chapter 5 - The Signature
Jake read the date three times.
“This is fake.”
Todd snatched the paper back. “Careful.”
“Rachel was dead.”
“You don’t know what you’re looking at.”
“I know when my wife died.”
Ben stared between them.
Ms. Alvarez stepped forward. “This discussion needs to happen away from the student.”
Todd grabbed Ben’s backpack.
“I’m taking him home.”
“No,” Ben said.
Todd’s face changed.
It was quick, but Jake saw it.
Rage behind the eyes.
Then the office secretary appeared, and Todd forced a smile.
“You’re confused, buddy. Come on.”
Ben looked at Jake.
Jake wanted to pull him away.
Instead, he remembered Ms. Patel: We document. We do not improvise.
He took out the cheap notebook the halfway house had given him.
“What are you doing?” Todd asked.
“Writing down the date, the time, and what I just saw.”
Todd laughed. “Prison turn you into a lawyer?”
“No. It taught me paper matters.”
The smile disappeared from Todd’s face.
That afternoon, Jake walked to the county courthouse and asked for the guardianship file.
The clerk brought him a thin folder.
Inside was an emergency petition stating that Rachel had wanted Todd to care for Ben if anything happened to her. Attached was a photocopied statement with Rachel’s signature.
Jake knew that signature.
The shape was close.
The pressure was wrong.
Rachel always crossed her T’s hard enough to dent the page beneath.
This one floated across the paper.
“Can I get copies?” he asked.
“For a fee.”
Jake looked at the forty-three dollars from prison, now down to thirty-one.
“How much?”
He paid.
On his way out, a woman in a gray suit called his name.
“Mr. Carter?”
He turned.
“I’m Dana Price. Child Protective Services.”
Jake tensed.
She held up a hand. “I’m not here to arrest you or take your son. I’m following up on a school report.”
“Is he safe?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine.”
Jake showed her the strange signature date.
Dana’s expression sharpened.
“Where did you get this?”
“The court file.”
She studied it, then asked, “Did your wife have an attorney?”
“Yes. Family lawyer. Margaret Sloan, I think.”
Dana wrote down the name.
“Find her,” she said.
Jake looked at the brass key Ben had slipped into his palm.
“What if this opens something Rachel left?”
Dana gave him a careful look.
“Then don’t lose it.”
That night, Jake called every Sloan in the county.
On the seventh call, a woman answered.
“Margaret Sloan.”
Jake stood so fast his chair hit the wall.
“My name is Jake Carter. Rachel Carter was my wife.”
May you like
The line went silent.
Then Margaret said, “I’ve been waiting for you to call for almost a year.”
