Chapter 3 - The First Signature
By seven the next morning, Maya had assembled three people around a conference table.
Me.
A forensic document examiner named Dr. Claire Bennett.
And a paralegal, Daniel, who kept receiving telephone calls from our process server.
A paper cup of coffee sat untouched in front of me.
My cheek had darkened overnight.
Claire examined the photocopy of the voting proxy beneath a magnifying lamp.
"You believe this signature originated on a jewelry certificate?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I described the necklace.
It had been a delicate gold pendant shaped like an open window.
I'd made it for a woman whose daughter had died.
The woman wanted something she could wear close to her heart without hiding the light.
I'd called the design Morning Window.
The certificate displayed my signature along the bottom.
Mom framed a duplicate for her office.
Nathan later took that framed copy to his store when he began advertising Vale Atelier designs.
Claire listened carefully.
"Do you have a photograph of the certificate?"
I searched my phone.
After several minutes, I found an image taken during Nathan's store opening.
Behind him, partly obscured by a flower arrangement, hung the framed certificate.
Claire enlarged it.
"Interesting."
"What?"
"The shapes appear similar, but this resolution isn't enough for a conclusion. I'd want the original or a high-quality scan of both."
"So it doesn't prove anything."
"Not yet."
Maya leaned forward.
"Emma, you were in Portland on the day the proxy was supposedly notarized. Can your aunt confirm it?"
"Yes."
"Would she sign a sworn statement?"
"Absolutely."
"Do you have anything independent? Hotel records? Travel reservations? Photographs?"
"I stayed with Janine. But I bought medication at a pharmacy that morning. And we went to an art exhibition."
Daniel looked up.
"Did you purchase tickets online?"
"Janine did."
"Good. We can work with that."
Maya turned toward the window.
"We also need the notary."
The document listed Nora Price.
Her commission information appeared legitimate at first glance.
But Maya had discovered that Nora previously worked as an administrative assistant for Nathan's holding company.
"That doesn't automatically invalidate the notarization," Maya explained.
"But it makes her relationship to the transaction important."
"Where is she now?"
"That's what we're trying to establish."
My phone vibrated.
A message from Nathan.
You made a huge mistake yesterday.
A second followed.
I can make the police situation go away if you stop listening to Maya.
Then a third.
Think about your mother's employees before you destroy everything she built.
I passed the phone to Maya.
She read the messages without changing her expression.
"Don't respond."
"I wasn't going to."
"Save these. We may need them."
Another message arrived.
Friday is happening whether you like it or not.
I felt cold.
Nathan wasn't trying to reconcile.
He was trying to frighten me into abandoning the workshop.
Maya returned my phone.
"Let's get you to Vale Atelier."
"Why?"
"Because whatever Nathan is planning, the people who work there deserve to hear directly from someone who is trying to keep the company intact."
The workshop occupied the second floor of a brick building on West Twenty-Eighth Street.
I had practically grown up there.
As soon as I opened the door, I smelled polishing compound, warm metal, and coffee.
The familiar sounds hit me harder than I expected.
The buzz of a small rotary tool.
The tapping of a hammer.
An old radio playing classic rock.
Ana Chen looked up from her bench.
She'd worked for my mother for nineteen years.
"Emma?"
Her expression changed when she saw my cheek.
"Who did that?"
I hesitated.
Then I said, "Nathan."
Ana put down her tools.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then she crossed the room and hugged me.
That was when I finally cried.
Not in the jewelry store.
Not in the taxi.
Not at urgent care.
Here.
In the place where my mother had taught me that broken things could sometimes be repaired, though never by pretending they hadn't been damaged.
Ana held me until I stepped back.
"What's happening?" she asked.
I told her about the shareholder meeting.
About the proposed sale.
About the document I hadn't signed.
The color left her face.
"He's really going to sell us?"
"He's trying."
She pointed toward the back room.
"Then you need to see what arrived this morning."
On the worktable lay eleven identical envelopes.
Every employee had received one.
Inside was a document headed Transition and Separation Information.
The letter described an anticipated shutdown of workshop operations within six months.
It offered severance payments.
It instructed employees not to discuss the proposed transaction with anyone outside the company.
At the bottom was Nathan's signature.
Ana watched me read.
"He told us the sale was practically approved."
I looked up.
"It's not approved."
"Then why is he asking us to sign these?"
I read the final paragraph again.
Anyone accepting the proposed package would agree not to contest certain business decisions connected to the transaction.
Nathan wasn't merely preparing for a possible sale.
He was trying to eliminate opposition before the vote.
Then Ana said something that made my stomach drop.
"Emma, he also said your mother wanted this."
I stared at her.
"What?"
"At the staff meeting Monday. He said she'd approved the idea before she died."
I could barely breathe.
My mother had spent the last six months of her life trying to preserve the workshop.
She would have sold her own furniture before allowing the company to be dismantled.
"Nathan lied."
Ana's expression hardened.
"Then it's time somebody made him prove what he's saying."
She reached into a drawer and handed me a small brass key.
"Your mother left something in her old desk. Ruth told me to keep it locked until you came looking."
I stared at the key.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Because your mother said you weren't supposed to open it until your twenty-ninth birthday."
I closed my fingers around the brass.
May you like
For the second time in twenty-four hours, I discovered that my mother had left me something tied to Friday.
And this time, I wasn't waiting for the date she had chosen.
