Chapter 4: The Name on the Last Page
I read the page three times before the words stopped moving.
It was a contract.
Two years old, dated six weeks before Elena d*ed.
My signature was at the bottom — or something that looked like it.
The document transferred a twenty-percent stake in my company to a holding entity I had never heard of.
Crestline Partners LLC.
I had never signed anything called that.
I had never seen that name.
I pulled out my phone and called my business attorney, Frank Delgado.
He picked up on the second ring.
"I need you to look something up.
Tonight."
"It's almost eight o'clock, Daniel."
"Crestline Partners LLC.
I need to know who owns it."
A pause.
"Where did you get that name?"
"Does it mean something to you?"
"It means I need you to not touch anything else in whatever you're looking at and come to my office first thing tomorrow morning." His voice had changed.
"Daniel.
Don't call anyone else tonight.
Not about this."
"Frank—"
"First thing tomorrow.
Promise me."
I looked at the signature on the page.
The loop on the D.
The way the letters leaned right.
It was close.
It was very close.
But the D didn't loop that way.
Mine never had.
"I'll be there at eight," I said.
I ended the call and sat in the silence of my office for a moment.
Then I went upstairs.
My daughter was in her brother's room.
They were both on his bed, still dressed, the lamp on.
She had her arm around him.
He was asleep.
She looked up when I came in.
"Is she gone?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Is she coming back?"
I sat on the edge of the bed.
"No.
She's not."
She studied my face the way children do when they're deciding whether to believe you.
Then she leaned her head against my arm.
"Daddy," she said quietly.
"Vanessa used to talk on the phone at night.
After you went to sleep.
I heard her from the hallway."
"What did she say?"
"I couldn't hear the words.
But she sounded angry." She paused.
"She said a name once.
I remember because it was the same as my teacher's name."
"What name?"
"Marcus."
I kept my voice even.
"Do you remember anything else?"
She thought about it.
"She said, 'He'll never find out.' And then she laughed."
I held my daughter until she fell asleep against me.
Then I sat in the dark room listening to my son breathe and I turned the name over in my mind.
Marcus.
I didn't know anyone named Marcus.
But Frank Delgado had gone quiet the moment I said Crestline Partners.
And Vanessa had whispered *How?* to whoever called her — not *Who is this*, not *What do you want*.
How.
The word of someone who already knew the caller.
Someone who thought a particular door had been permanently closed.
I went back downstairs and opened the folder again.
I turned to the last page and looked at my forged signature.
Beneath it, in the bottom right corner, was a small embossed stamp I had missed the first time.
Notarized.
County of Harlow.
Notary seal number 4471-M.
I took a photograph of it with my phone.
Then I photographed every page in the folder, uploaded them to my private cloud account, and locked the folder in my car.
By the time I came back inside, there was a text on my phone from a number I didn't recognize.
May you like
*You should have left the floor alone.
There's still time to walk away from this.*
