Chapter 3
Marco carried the letter into the records office as if it might break.
I followed beside Mom, holding her hand with both of mine. The office smelled like paper, dust, and the sharp coffee that had gone cold in a machine near the door. Tall shelves filled one wall. Gray boxes sat in rows with tiny labels on them. I counted three boxes before Mom squeezed my fingers.
“Stay close,” she whispered.
“I am.”
Dominic stood behind a wide table beneath a bright lamp. He had taken off his suit jacket, but he still looked too big for the room. Marco placed the folded letter on a clean sheet of paper and opened it carefully.
The creases had turned white from all the times I had folded it and unfolded it at our kitchen table.
Marco put another letter beside it.
“This is a legitimate termination notice from last year,” he said. “Same company letterhead. Different routing.”
I leaned forward. The real letter had a number printed near the top right corner. Elena’s letter had a number too, but it was shorter.
Marco noticed me looking.
“The routing number matters,” he said. “It tells the records department where the notice was entered and who received it.”
“Does hers go anywhere?” Dominic asked.
Marco checked a binder, then a computer screen. His mouth tightened.
“No matching entry. The number belongs to an old batch that was closed months ago.”
Mom’s hand went still around mine.
Dominic looked at the letter. “And the signature?”
Marco placed a clear plastic sheet over the bottom of the page. He brought out two more samples, each signed by Dominic. The real signatures leaned slightly forward, with a long final stroke.
The signature on Mom’s letter looked similar at first. But under the lamp, the ink seemed darker in some places and thin in others.
“It was likely copied or traced,” Marco said. “The pressure is wrong. The pen lifted where yours doesn’t.”
Dominic didn’t touch the paper. “My authorization process requires an electronic approval, a routing entry, and a second review from human resources.”
Marco turned a page in his binder. “None of those are attached to Elena’s notice.”
“Could they be filed somewhere else?”
“I checked the usual locations. There’s no approval record, no delivery confirmation, and no personnel review.”
Mom stared at the letter. “Maybe someone forgot to enter it.”
Dominic’s eyes moved to her. “One missing record could be an error. All of them missing is a decision.”
The room became very quiet.
I remembered Mom at our kitchen table. She had folded the letter into a square, pressed the edge with her thumbnail, then opened it again. She did that many times. Sometimes she looked toward the apartment door before unfolding it.
“I saw you doing that,” I said.
Mom looked down at me. “Doing what?”
“Folding the letter. At the table.”
Her face changed a little.
“Did you see who gave it to me?”
I shook my head. “No. You were just there.”
That was all I knew. The memory felt small and slippery, not like one of the clear things I could tell my teacher. I remembered the yellow kitchen light and the rabbit’s loose ear resting beside my plate. I didn’t remember an adult.
Dominic leaned back from the table. “What happened before you received it?”
Mom didn’t answer right away. She looked at Marco, then at Dominic, as if choosing which door was least dangerous.
“I questioned several vendor payments,” she said. “Invoices that didn’t match the work listed. Some were approved faster than the others.”
“How many?” Marco asked.
“I wrote down seven. Maybe more.”
“Did you report them?”
“I asked for clarification.”
Dominic’s expression hardened. “To whom?”
“To my department supervisor. I also sent questions through email.”
Mom pulled her coat tighter around herself. “After that, I was told to stop looking at them. A few days later, the termination letter appeared.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
She crouched beside me. “Because I was scared. I thought if I made trouble, we could lose our apartment.”
Dominic’s voice stayed calm. “Preserve every email and note connected to those payments. Don’t delete anything.”
Mom stood. “I’ll do it, but Lily stays out of company offices.”
Dominic nodded immediately. “Agreed.”
He didn’t argue. He didn’t reach for me or tell Mom what she had to do. He only looked at Marco.
“Start with the vendor records,” he said. “Quietly.”
Marco folded the clear sheet back over the forged signature. The letter remained untouched beneath it, evidence now instead of a question.
As we left, I looked once more at the dark ink.
May you like
It matched Dominic’s name.
It matched nothing in his office.
