Chapter 3: A Signature That Wasn’t Hers
The representative’s question seemed to hang between the booths.
Jo reached across the table and covered my hand. Her fingers were cool and steady. I looked at the statements spread beneath them and thought of the folder missing from my desk, of Daniel’s frightened face, of Michael asking about my flight as if the answer mattered more than anything else.
“I did not authorize that request,” I said. “I want it formally disputed. And I want a temporary hold while you verify with me directly.”
The representative asked me to confirm my identity again. I did. She explained that the request would be flagged and could not proceed until the dispute was reviewed. It wasn’t a promise that everything was safe. It was a door held shut for now.
“Put this in your notes,” I said. “I am not traveling today, and I will answer a call from your verified number.”
“I’ve documented that,” she said.
When the call ended, I let out a breath that left my chest trembling. Jo pulled the statements closer, her expression sharpening as she studied the document the representative had sent to my secure account.
“Look at the initials,” she said.
I leaned in.
The signature looked enough like mine to make my skin prickle. The first letter rose high, as mine did. The last name narrowed at the end, just as I sometimes wrote it when I was rushing. But beneath it, my initials had been placed with careful, separate strokes.
I never wrote them that way. My hand dragged the second one into the first, an old habit from signing birthday cards and permission slips too quickly.
“It’s a small difference,” Jo said. “But it’s yours to recognize.”
“I recognize it.”
A phone buzzed on the table.
Michael’s name lit the screen. For one stupid second, seeing it made me want to tell him what had happened—not because I trusted him, but because the part of me that had loved him still expected him to explain.
His text came in.
Emergency at the office. I need your approval on another document. Please sign the yellow tab and leave it on the kitchen counter. I’ll explain when I can.
Jo read it over my shoulder.
“What document?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you agree to sign anything?”
“No.”
I typed that I needed to see the document first. My thumb hovered over the screen. I could almost hear Michael’s patient voice, the one he used when he wanted me to feel unreasonable for asking a second question.
I sent the message.
His reply arrived before I could put the phone down.
There isn’t time for this. It’s just a temporary authorization. You know how bad things are right now. Please trust me.
The words blurred—not because I was crying, but because my eyes had gone suddenly dry.
Jo read the message and sat back.
“He’s asking you to sign something you haven’t seen,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
I locked my phone. The choice should have felt obvious. Instead, it felt like standing in the middle of our kitchen, watching the man I had married hold out a pen and waiting for him to become someone I recognized.
Jo gathered the statements into a neat stack. “You shouldn’t go home alone.”
“I’m not going to confront him.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
The gentleness in her voice nearly undid me. I gripped the edge of the table until the feeling passed.
“I need to know whether he’s taking anything else,” I said. “The folder is already gone.”
Jo considered that, then took her keys from her purse.
“Then we watch. We don’t get close, and we don’t let him know we’re there.”
The drive back toward my neighborhood passed under a low gray sky. I kept my phone face down in my lap, though I could feel its silence as keenly as another message. Jo turned onto a side street before we reached my block and parked where a line of bare shrubs partly hid the car.
From there, I could see the end of my driveway.
The house looked the same as it had that morning: pale siding, dark front windows, the porch light still on from the night before. I had walked out of it believing my greatest worry was the trip. Now every ordinary detail seemed arranged to conceal what had happened inside.
We waited.
At last, the front door opened. Michael stepped out carrying his coat over one arm. He paused to check his phone, then glanced toward the street. I sank lower in the passenger seat.
He looked toward our house once more before pulling the door shut.
A corner of a folder showed beneath his coat.
It wasn’t the blue folder I’d searched for in the desk drawer. This one was thinner, a pale edge tucked under his arm. He held it close against his ribs as he crossed to the car.
My mouth went dry.
Jo didn’t start the engine until Michael had pulled away and turned the corner.
“Do you want me to follow?” she asked.
I watched the empty street where he’d been. “Yes.”
We kept several cars between us. Michael drove toward the older part of town, where the shops had narrow windows and angled parking that forced everyone to pass close. He turned into a small café lot and parked near the front.
Jo stopped across the street.
Through the windshield, I saw Michael get out with the folder still beneath his coat. He crossed to the café and opened the door.
A woman sat at the window.
May you like
She had one hand wrapped around a coffee cup and the other resting beside a second chair. When Michael entered, she looked up—not surprised, not confused. Waiting.
Then he took the folder from beneath his coat and slid into the seat across from her.
