Chapter 5
The apartment went quiet after Mom hung up. I heard the soft click on the line and then nothing but the hum of the refrigerator and the city outside the glass.
I stayed in the corner where the dark wood cabinetry met the desk. Ethan had left the white papers on the marble when he walked out. He'd only taken one with him. The rest stayed fanned out, a little crooked, and the warm lamplight from the office corner fell across them in a yellow circle while the rest of the room stayed cool and blue.
I didn't pick up my phone. I picked up the locket.
It was still warm from my skin. The chain was so thin it almost disappeared between my fingers, the oval gold face smooth except for the engraved floral border I could feel with my thumb. I set it down next to the papers because I needed both hands.
The paper on top was a vendor form. At the bottom, in the signature line, was my name. Victoria Cole, written in a loop I recognized and didn't.
I pulled open the desk drawer. Inside was a small leather checkbook holder and a notepad where I'd practiced my new signature the month Ethan and I got engaged. I'd crossed it out a few times, tried to make the V bigger, smaller. I tore off a clean sheet.
I uncapped a pen and signed my name under the lamp the way I always did. My wrist moved fast, my thumb tight. Then I looked at the paper again.
The forgery was slower. The V started in the same place but the curve was heavier, like someone had traced it and pressed too hard. The tail on the a was flat. Mine lifted. Whoever had done it had learned the shape but not the speed.
I held my real signature next to theirs and my hand started to shake a little. I set the pen down and breathed and looked again to be sure I wasn't imagining it.
I wasn't.
I slid the vendor form aside. Underneath was a heavier packet, cream paper with an embossed header I'd seen before. Cole Family Foundation. The gala program proof from last spring. I remembered the fitting for that dress, the ballroom, Richard shaking my hand and saying he was glad I was part of the family now.
There was a signature page clipped to the back. Authorization for Facility Access. My name again, in that same traced hand. Below it, a line typed in small caps: AUTHORIZED SIGNATORY - TOWER OFFICE & ARCHIVE - KEY CARD ELIGIBILITY.
It wasn't a vendor form. It was a key.
I sat back and the wood of the chair creaked. I hadn't signed that. I'd never been asked to sign that. I remembered Ethan asking me to sign a catering confirmation while we were on the phone in the car, him saying just initial here, just so they hold the date. I remembered signing without the pages underneath being flat.
I flipped through the packet. There were more. A safe deposit access form from the bank downtown, a letter on foundation letterhead requesting duplicate credentials. Each one had that same slow Victoria.
I reached for the locket without thinking and stopped with my fingers just over it. The chain caught the lamplight and threw a thin gold line across the paper.
That's when I saw it.
The chain wasn't just jewelry. Where it looped through the bail at the top of the oval, there was a tiny flat bar, no longer than a grain of rice, finished to match the gold. I had thought it was part of the clasp. I leaned closer. It was a key blank, filed and grooved on one side, cut so fine you'd miss it if you weren't looking. The kind that went to a safe deposit box, or to one of those private office drawers in the foundation tower where they kept the real files.
I lifted the locket by the chain and let it turn. The bar key caught the light and then disappeared against the gold.
They hadn't just practiced my signature on paper. They'd made a thing that carried it. Something I would wear, something that would be close, something that would open a door when my name alone wouldn't be enough without me in the room.
I looked back at the papers, at the tower access line, and understood why they'd wanted to keep me close while they told Lucy she was better for Ethan. They didn't need me to stay. They needed my handwriting to stay.
I didn't open the locket. I wasn't ready for what was inside, and I knew if I did it now, alone under this lamp, I'd make a noise and lose the quiet I needed to think.
May you like
I folded my real signature and put it in my pocket. I left the forged papers exactly as I'd found them, fanned crooked under the lamp, and closed the drawer soft enough that the wood didn't click. My breathing was slow and shallow and I could hear it.
I left the locket on the desk, the gold oval facing down, the little key hidden against the wood, and I knew I had to go to that tower and see what door it opened before anyone knew I'd looked.
