Chapter 7 - The Signature That Wasn't His
Forgery changed suspicion into something Gabriel could finally name.
Someone had not merely been cruel to Emma or controlling toward Lily.
Someone had built a legal structure around his daughters using his name without his consent.
Miriam sent a scanned copy of the trust amendment.
Gabriel enlarged the signature on his phone.
It looked convincing at first glance.
The slant was right.
The capital G had the same long first stroke he used.
But the final letters were too careful.
Gabriel's real signature became messier when he was rushed.
This one looked as though someone had practiced.
“Who notarized it?” he asked.
Miriam turned pages on the other end of the line.
“Elliot Price.”
Gabriel stopped.
“The doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Why would a neurologic specialist notarize a family trust?”
“He is also commissioned as a notary in New York.”
Gabriel laughed once without humor.
“Convenient.”
“I want a handwriting expert and the original document.”
“Already requested.”
“From whom?”
“Harold Vane's former firm.”
Gabriel looked toward the hall.
“Do not tell Celeste.”
“I had no intention of doing that.”
Miriam paused.
“One more thing.”
Gabriel waited.
“The trust includes a medical oversight clause.”
“What does that mean?”
“If one of the beneficiaries has a serious medical condition, the trustee can authorize independent evaluations to determine whether the guardian is following recommended care.”
Gabriel felt the pieces tighten around each other.
“Dr. Price.”
“Exactly.”
“So he writes reports saying Lily is getting worse.”
“And if those reports suggest the treatment plan is being ignored...”
“Celeste has grounds to petition.”
Miriam did not need to finish.
Gabriel ended the call and stood alone in the study.
He understood strategy.
He understood leverage.
What sickened him was the possibility that Lily's fear had been useful to someone.
If Lily remained frightened, if she appeared weaker, if specialists described regression, then a legal argument grew stronger.
Emma had ruined that argument by helping the child improve.
Suddenly every insult toward the nanny had a second meaning.
Temporary.
Unqualified.
Overstepping.
Dependent.
They were not merely social judgments.
They were words that could be placed into affidavits.
Gabriel went directly to the playroom.
Emma was helping Lily stand between two low cushions.
Ava was pretending to be a doctor with a plastic stethoscope.
“You need medicine,” Ava told a stuffed bear.
The bear appeared resigned to its fate.
Emma looked up.
“Everything okay?”
Gabriel almost said no again.
Instead, he asked, “Can we talk?”
Emma glanced at the girls.
“Here?”
“In the hall.”
They stepped outside while a trusted housekeeper remained with the children.
Gabriel closed the playroom door most of the way.
“Someone forged my signature on a trust involving Lily and Ava.”
Emma stared at him.
“That sounds... serious.”
“It is.”
“What does it have to do with me?”
“Possibly everything.”
Emma's face tightened.
Gabriel explained the medical oversight clause.
He explained Dr. Price's role.
He explained that evidence of Lily's decline could increase Celeste's control.
Emma listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she leaned against the wall.
“So Lily getting better is bad for someone.”
The simplicity of the sentence made it uglier.
“Yes.”
Emma looked through the gap in the door at Lily.
The baby was laughing because Ava had put the toy stethoscope on her own foot.
Emma's expression changed from fear to anger.
“They scared her on purpose?”
“I don't know that.”
“You think it.”
Gabriel did not answer.
Emma's eyes flashed.
“I watched that man make her cry.”
“Dr. Price?”
“Yes.”
“He said she had to learn that crying wouldn't stop therapy.”
Gabriel remembered the sentence.
He had heard a similar version himself.
Emma continued.
“What if the fear was the point?”
Gabriel felt a surge of anger and forced it back down.
“We prove what happened before we decide why.”
Emma gave him a sharp look.
“You sound very calm.”
“I'm not.”
That was the most honest answer he could give.
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then her voice softened.
“What about Rosa?”
“Still missing.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“I should have listened to her.”
“This is not on you.”
“She tried to warn me.”
“And she didn't tell you enough to act.”
Emma looked away.
Gabriel recognized guilt because he carried his own version of it.
“You are not responsible for seeing every danger in a house that was supposed to be safe.”
Gabriel remained in the hallway after saying the words.
He had meant them for Emma, but they exposed something he had been avoiding about Luca too.
His brother had tried to warn him before his death.
Gabriel remembered one missed call clearly now.
Luca had called during a dinner with investors and left a message that began with his usual irritation.
Call me when your empire can survive ten minutes without you.
Gabriel had listened only long enough to roll his eyes.
He sent a text promising to call the next morning.
Then a supplier crisis started before sunrise.
The call moved to afternoon.
Then evening.
Then never.
Emma saw the memory move across his face.
“What?”
Gabriel looked toward the playroom door.
“Luca tried to reach me.”
“About the trust?”
“I don't know.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I assumed whatever he wanted could wait.”
Emma did not tell him not to feel guilty.
She had already learned he would not believe easy absolution.
Instead, she asked, “If you had answered, would you have known it was the last important call?”
“No.”
“Then judge the decision you actually made, not the future you did not know.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“That sounds suspiciously reasonable.”
“I have my moments.”
He exhaled.
“I still should have called.”
“Yes.”
Emma's honesty hurt and helped at the same time.
Gabriel nodded.
“Yes.”
Then Emma added, “And missing one call does not make you responsible for everything Luca was fighting.”
Gabriel looked at the closed door.
He was beginning to understand that responsibility was not a single weight someone either carried or escaped.
It had edges.
He could own his absence without owning another person's choices.
He could regret the missed call without rewriting Luca's death as punishment for it.
The distinction did not remove grief.
It gave grief a shape he could finally hold.
Emma met his eyes.
The sentence was meant for her.
It sounded as though he was also saying it to himself.
The moment lasted until Dominic appeared at the end of the corridor.
“We found Rosa.”
Emma turned instantly.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.”
Dominic held up his phone.
“She checked into a roadside motel in Pennsylvania under her maiden name.”
Gabriel frowned.
“How did you find her?”
“She used a rewards card for gas.”
Emma exhaled in relief.
“Can we talk to her?”
Dominic shook his head.
“She won't answer.”
Gabriel took the phone.
There was a text from Rosa to her husband.
I'M SAFE. DON'T TELL THEM ANYTHING.
Gabriel read it twice.
“Them.”
Dominic nodded.
“Could mean us.”
“Or someone else.”
Emma looked between them.
“Let me call her.”
Gabriel frowned.
“She may not answer your number either.”
“She might.”
Emma borrowed Dominic's phone so the number would be unfamiliar.
Rosa answered after six rings.
“Hello?”
Emma's voice softened immediately.
“Rosa, it's Emma.”
Silence.
Then a shaky breath.
“Are you alone?”
Emma looked at Gabriel.
“No.”
“Is he there?”
“Gabriel is here.”
Rosa became silent again.
Emma waited.
“Nobody is angry with you.”
Rosa laughed weakly.
“You don't know these people.”
Emma's eyes moved toward Gabriel.
“I know enough.”
Rosa whispered, “They told me if I talked, Miguel's papers would disappear.”
“Who?”
Rosa did not answer.
Emma tried again.
“Who threatened you?”
“I can't say.”
“Rosa, they planted medicine in my bag.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“To make you look unsafe around the babies.”
Gabriel's stomach hardened.
Emma closed her eyes.
“What medicine?”
“Sleeping pills.”
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
A sedating prescription in Emma's bag could have been turned into a devastating accusation.
Rosa continued.
“I took the bottle before anyone could find it.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Emma asked.
“Because Marco saw me leaving the staff room.”
Gabriel leaned closer to the phone.
Rosa's voice dropped.
“He asked what I had in my apron.”
Emma whispered, “What did you say?”
“I lied.”
“What happened after that?”
“They called Miguel's immigration lawyer the next day.”
Gabriel's expression turned cold.
“What did they say?”
Rosa heard him.
Her voice shook.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then help me understand.”
Rosa started crying again.
“Luca knew.”
Gabriel went still.
“Knew what?”
“The trust.”
“What about it?”
“He knew Celeste was moving money.”
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
“How do you know that?”
“I heard them fighting in the kitchen two weeks before he died.”
“Luca and Celeste?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Rosa took a shaky breath.
“He said he had proof.”
Gabriel felt the room tighten.
“Proof of what?”
“That money meant for the girls was being moved into companies Marco controlled.”
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
Rosa continued.
“Luca said he was changing everything back.”
“But the amendment was signed three days before he died.”
“I know.”
Gabriel's pulse slowed in the dangerous way it always did when anger became focus.
“Rosa, where is the proof?”
“I don't know.”
“You said he had it.”
“He told Celeste he kept copies where she would never look.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Rosa was crying harder now.
“Please don't make me come back.”
Gabriel's voice softened.
“I won't.”
Emma looked at him, surprised.
“Stay where you are tonight.”
Rosa sniffed.
“Then what?”
“I'll send an attorney who does not work for my family.”
“Can you help Miguel?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel did not say maybe.
He did not make promises lightly.
Rosa was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, “There is one more thing.”
Gabriel waited.
“The night Luca died, he came into the kitchen after everyone went to bed.”
“What was he doing?”
“He took one of the girls' old storybooks from a cabinet.”
Gabriel frowned.
“The girls were babies.”
“It belonged to Elena.”
Gabriel's chest tightened at his late wife's name.
“Which book?”
Rosa answered.
“The red one with the gold moon.”
Gabriel knew exactly which book she meant.
Elena had loved it as a child.
After her death, Gabriel placed it in Lily's nursery.
Behind the books.
Beside the place where Dominic had found the hidden camera.
May you like
Gabriel ended the call and looked at Emma.
Then both of them turned toward the nursery at the same time.
