Chapter 6 - The Locked Study
By noon, two things were clear.
The three-point-two-million-dollar transfer had been stopped.
The contents of safe-deposit box 718 were gone.
Nathan's attorney, David Sloan, arrived at the house with a laptop, a legal pad, and the look of a man who had just canceled his entire day.
Claire refused to speak without her own lawyer.
Nathan did not stop her from going upstairs, but he had a security guard remain in the hall. Lucy stayed with Elena in the playroom.
David examined the bank authorization.
"This signature is good," he said.
"It's fake."
"I believe you. I'm saying whoever did it practiced."
Nathan stared at the page.
"Who had access to my signature?"
David gave him a tired look. "You run a company. Half the executive floor has seen it."
Elena entered quietly. "Mrs. Mercer kept old holiday cards from you in the desk in the blue study."
Nathan looked up.
"How do you know?"
"I dusted it every Thursday."
The blue study had belonged to Evelyn. After her death, Claire locked it and claimed she was not ready to sort through the belongings.
Nathan found the key missing from the kitchen cabinet.
"Of course," he muttered.
David called a locksmith.
Twenty minutes later, the study door opened.
The room smelled faintly of lavender and old paper. Evelyn's reading glasses still sat beside a stack of gardening magazines. Nathan stopped at the threshold.
For eight months he had avoided this room.
Now he was searching it for evidence against his wife.
Elena checked the writing desk.
The holiday cards were gone.
But beneath the blotter, she found a sheet of tracing paper covered in loops and sharp downstrokes.
Nathan's signature.
Again and again.
At the bottom, one attempt had been circled in red ink.
David photographed it.
"That'll interest the bank's fraud team."
Nathan opened a drawer.
Inside was a blue folder marked MEDICAL.
He pulled out a document he did recognize.
A routine insurance update he had signed six months earlier.
Behind it was a second document.
Durable medical power of attorney.
Primary agent: Claire Mercer.
Nathan stared at the signature page.
"I never saw this."
David's expression darkened. "Your signature is real on this one."
"Then how—"
"It was probably placed inside another packet."
Nathan remembered a stack of refinancing documents Claire had brought to his office late one night.
Just sign the tabs. We need them back in the morning.
He had signed without reading every page.
His phone buzzed.
Mercer Holdings security alert.
An executive server had just been accessed remotely.
User: CALEB PRICE.
Folder opened: SUCCESSION / INCAPACITY PROTOCOL.
Nathan looked at David.
"What happens if someone declares me medically incompetent?"
David did not answer immediately.
That silence was worse than any answer.
"Claire could control your health decisions," he said at last. "And under the draft corporate agreement Caleb circulated last year, temporary voting authority could pass to the CFO."
Nathan slowly looked toward the ceiling, where his wife was waiting upstairs.
May you like
This had never been about a wedding ring.
It had been about taking him out of his own life.
