Chapter 4: What My Mother Signed
Dad turned slowly.
“What else did you sign?”
Mom stared at the wet stone.
“A deed authorization.”
“You forged my name on a deed?” I asked.
“Paige said the cottage needed repairs,” she replied.
“She said selling quickly would protect both of you.”
Paige lifted her chin.
“It would have.”
“Who was buying it?” Ryan asked.
Paige said nothing.
A siren sounded beyond the gates.
The medic guided me toward the stretcher while Dad walked beside me.
Ryan followed.
“Paige, who was buying the cottage?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters if my company is listed on the contract.”
Ryan’s voice changed on the final words.
Paige’s eyes darted toward him.
He pulled out his phone.
“You used Mercer Development?”
“You said your firm wanted lakeside property.”
“I said we were reviewing properties.
I never authorized an offer.”
“You would have after the wedding.”
Ryan held up the phone.
“My name is on those documents, isn’t it?”
Mom covered her mouth.
Brooke stepped closer to me.
“I heard Paige mention a holding company called Blue Heron.”
Ryan stopped typing.
“My father owns Blue Heron.”
Paige reached for him.
“Ryan, I can explain.”
He stepped away.
“You were going to use my family’s company to buy your sister’s property below market value.”
“It was an investment for us.”
“There is no ‘us.’”
Paige’s face twisted.
“You can’t cancel everything because Marissa fell into a pool.”
“I canceled it because you put her there.”
The medic lifted the stretcher into the ambulance.
Brooke climbed in before anyone could stop her.
“I’m going with Marissa,” she said.
Paige laughed sharply.
“Now you’re her best friend?”
Brooke looked back through the open doors.
“No.
I’m the woman who should have spoken yesterday.”
At the hospital, a nurse cut the wet sleeve away from my brace.
Brooke held my left hand while the doctor studied the scan.
“The tendon damage has worsened,” he said.
“I’m arranging an orthopedic consultation tonight.”
My breath caught.
“Will I need surgery?”
“It is more likely now.”
Brooke lowered her head.
“This is my fault.”
“No,” I said.
“It’s Paige’s.”
Mom appeared in the doorway with Dad behind her.
“Marissa,” she said, “please let me explain.”
“Did you copy my signature?”
She gripped her purse.
“Paige brought me an old form you signed.
I traced it.”
Dad stared at her.
“You told me Marissa agreed.”
“I was trying to keep peace in the family.”
I laughed once, then winced from the pain.
“You forged my name to keep peace?”
“Paige said she needed the money after the wedding.”
“So you took my home.”
“It’s only a cottage.”
“It was Grandma’s home.”
Mom’s voice rose.
“And Paige has needs too!”
The words emptied the room.
I turned my face toward the wall, but tears slipped onto the pillow.
Dad moved beside me.
“Elaine, leave.”
“She needs her mother.”
“No,” I said.
“I needed my mother before she signed my name.”
Mom’s shoulders folded.
She reached toward me, then stopped.
Brooke opened the door.
“I’ll walk you out.”
Mom looked at her.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“It does now.”
After they left, Ryan entered with a gray-haired woman carrying a leather folder.
“This is Celeste Warren,” he said.
“She handled your grandmother’s estate.”
Celeste placed a document on the tray beside my bed.
“The cottage sale cannot legally close without you,” she said.
“But someone filed a notarized authorization this morning.”
“I never signed it.”
“I believe you.
Unfortunately, the document says otherwise.”
Ryan leaned over the page.
Then his finger stopped on the notary’s name.
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“She was at the wedding all morning.”
Celeste looked toward the doorway.
A woman in a green bridesmaid dress stood there, white-faced and shaking.
May you like
“I’m the notary,” she said.
“And I have never seen that document before.”
