My father leaned in, eyes narrowing. “That’s…that’s not my signature.”
It looked close, I’ll give Victoria that. The same sweeping G, the same slant. But it was too smooth, like someone who’d practiced it on a hundred sheets of paper. My father’s real signature always had a tremor at the end, a slight impatient hook.
Patricia glanced at me. “Forgery,” she said simply.
My stomach dropped, not because I was surprised, but because a part of me had still been hoping I was wrong.
Marcus exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. “We treat this as criminal.”
My father put his face in his hands. “How could she—”
I didn’t answer, because the question wasn’t really about how. It was about why he hadn’t seen it.
Patricia continued. “There’s more. Several transfers from your joint account into a private trust. Four credit cards opened in your name in the last eighteen months. Charges include boutique purchases, travel, jewelry.”
My father looked up sharply. “I didn’t open those cards.”
Patricia flipped another page. “And a withdrawal from your retirement account. Three hundred and eighty thousand.”
Silence swallowed the room.
My father’s mouth opened, then closed, like he couldn’t find air. “That can’t be.”