Chapter 7
Toby stared at Daniel’s tablet as if the email chain might explain itself if he looked long enough.
“I think I remember this,” he said.
My hands rested on Leon’s recipe card inside my handbag. I wanted to ask what, exactly, Toby remembered. Instead, I waited.
Daniel turned the tablet so Toby could see the screen.
“This is the earlier chain linked to the signature scan,” he said. “You’re included on it.”
Toby rubbed his forehead.
“Can I see the messages?”
Daniel glanced at me first.
I nodded. “It’s your email. Read what you need to.”
Toby leaned toward the tablet. His eyes moved across the screen, then stopped.
“I forwarded her the booking confirmation,” he said.
“Which her?” I asked, though I already knew.
“Sherry. She asked me for the details.”
“What details?”
“The venue name, the timing, the room information. I don’t remember exactly.” He looked up at me. “She was handling the guest list by then. I thought she needed the confirmation so she could coordinate.”
Daniel tapped the screen.
“The forwarded email includes an attachment.”
Toby squinted.
“That looks like the original reservation packet.”
“Is that what you sent her?” I asked.
“I guess so. I didn’t build the file. I forwarded what I had.”
“And my signature was in it.”
He glanced back at the screen.
“I didn’t know that page was attached.”
I studied his face. He looked startled, but surprise wasn’t the same as proof. I had spent too long trying to guess what people meant instead of asking what they had done.
“Did you tell Sherry she could use my signature?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you tell her she could sign your name for you?”
“No. Mom, I swear.”
“Did you tell her I approved the expanded guest list or the upgrades?”
“No. I thought you’d agreed to the party.” He swallowed. “I thought you and Sherry had talked.”
“You thought,” I said. “But you didn’t ask me.”
His shoulders sank.
“No. I didn’t.”
The answer hurt more because it was plain. Toby wasn’t claiming he’d checked. He wasn’t saying he’d heard me agree. He’d made an assumption, then treated it as good enough.
“I didn’t know she was using that document,” he said. “I didn’t know there was a revised authorization until tonight.”
Daniel kept his voice even.
“The forwarded packet explains how a scan of the original page might have reached Mrs. Lamb. It doesn’t establish who put it on the revised authorization, who signed that form, or who sent it to us.”
“Could it have been pulled from the forwarded packet automatically?” Toby asked.
“It could have been,” Daniel said. “We’d need to verify how the file was assembled. The records don’t answer that yet.”
Sherry shifted in her chair. For several minutes she had been quiet, her folder closed on the table in front of her. Now she opened it and lined up the edges of the papers inside, one by one.
“I asked for a copy of the booking information,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Then why did the venue receive a revised authorization bearing a signature Billie says isn’t hers?” Daniel asked.
“I didn’t say I knew anything about that signature.”
“You told the venue Billie approved the changes,” I said.
“I believed she had.”
“You wrote that she had.”
Sherry’s mouth tightened.
“I was trying to keep things moving.”
“That’s not the same as getting my approval.”
Her eyes flicked toward Toby, as if she expected him to settle it for her. He didn’t.
The party beyond the meeting-room door continued without us. A burst of laughter rose and faded. Silverware clinked. Somewhere, a server announced another course. The celebration Sherry had arranged sounded almost cheerful enough to belong to another family.
Toby was still looking at the message.
“I sent it because she asked for the event details,” he said. “I didn’t think about the signature page.”
“You didn’t think about a lot of things,” I said.
He flinched, but didn’t argue.
“I know.”
Daniel scrolled back through the chain.
“There’s another message here.”
Sherry stopped arranging the papers.
“What message?” she asked.
Daniel read the screen without turning it toward her.
“It’s a follow-up from Mrs. Lamb to our event coordinator, sent after Mr. Huitt forwarded the booking packet.”
“How long after?” I asked.
“A few minutes.”
“What does it say?”
Daniel paused to inspect the record.
“It says, ‘Use this version instead.’ There’s an attachment indicator, but the attachment isn’t included in the copy we have here.”
The room went still.
Sherry shut her folder.
“That was probably just the updated guest list.”
“Maybe,” Daniel said. “We can’t identify it from this record alone. I’ll preserve the message information and check whether the original file is available in another part of our system.”
“So we don’t know what she sent,” Toby said.
“Not yet.”
Toby looked at Sherry.
“Do you remember what was attached?”
“I sent many things back and forth with the venue.”
“Do you remember this one?”
“I’d have to see it.”
Daniel made a note on his pad.
“I’ll request the complete retained record. Until then, I’m not going to guess what the missing attachment contained.”
His restraint steadied the room more than any accusation could have. There were enough guesses already. Sherry had guessed I would pay. Toby had guessed I had agreed. Paige had guessed I had chosen not to come. Each assumption had made the next one easier.
I looked at my son.
“When you forwarded that packet, did you ask Sherry why she needed it?”
“I asked what she was doing with the guest list. She said she was making sure everyone had the information.”
“And when the guest list grew?”
“I knew more people were coming.”
“How many more?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t count.”
“You knew it had become seventy-two.”
“I knew it was a big party,” he said. “I didn’t know what the bill was going to be.”
“But you didn’t ask who was paying.”
“No.”
“Or whether I was still invited.”
He stared at the table.
“No.”
The words landed between us, quieter than the arguments had been and harder to move around.
“I thought if I stayed out of it, you and Sherry could work it out,” he said.
“You stayed out of it by telling me not to come.”
His face reddened.
“I was wrong.”
I wanted to tell him that admitting it didn’t mend anything. I also wanted to tell him I was relieved he had finally stopped pretending the decision belonged to someone else. Both things were true.
Before I could answer, Paige pushed her chair back.
The scrape made everyone turn.
She had been sitting near the end of the table, pale and silent, her hands folded around a glass of water. Since she admitted helping change the seating chart, she had barely looked at me.
“Billie,” she said, “there’s something I should have told you.”
I waited.
“Not about the authorization. I don’t know anything about that.”
“Then what?”
Paige glanced at her mother. Sherry’s expression sharpened.
“Paige, this isn’t the time,” Sherry said.
“It should have been the time before.”
Paige’s voice trembled, but she didn’t stop.
“I was there when the seating chart was being changed. I saw Mom practicing what she was going to say at the microphone.”
Sherry stood so abruptly her chair struck the wall behind her.
“That is not what happened.”
Paige looked at me, not her mother.
“She had the speech written out. She kept starting over. She wanted to get the part about bringing everyone together right.”
My throat tightened.
“What did she say she was going to announce?”
Paige glanced again at Sherry, whose hand had closed around the edge of her folder.
May you like
Then Paige looked back at me.
“She practiced saying she was the one who had hosted Toby’s birthday.”
