Chapter 5 - The Future Memory Loss
The document frightened me more than the missing money.
Financial theft could be measured.
This was different.
Paige had been constructing a version of me that did not exist.
A confused widow.
A forgetful mother.
An aging woman whose statements could not be trusted.
The fictional incidents became progressively worse.
According to Paige’s notes, I had forgotten where I parked.
Left a stove burning.
Accused strangers of stealing.
Repeated conversations.
One entry claimed I had wandered into Grant and Paige’s house at midnight.
It had never happened.
Another stated that Grant was “increasingly concerned about Marian’s cognitive decline.”
Grant read that sentence three times.
“I never said this.”
Nora nodded.
“That may not matter if someone can produce enough corroborating documentation.”
There were draft emails supposedly from Grant.
Draft messages from Diane.
Even a prepared letter to my physician.
Nothing had been sent yet.
It was infrastructure.
Paige had been preparing a reality she could activate whenever necessary.
Grant looked sick.
“Why?”
Nora answered carefully.
“Control.”
The next development came from Northstar.
Celeste found a reimbursement submitted six months earlier for $4,900.
The invoice came from a company called Mesa Verde Communications.
The business did not exist.
But the bank account receiving the payment did.
It belonged to a man named Eric Lane.
Grant knew him.
Paige’s former boyfriend.
That discovery changed the investigation.
Phone records obtained through Northstar’s corporate account showed Paige had been communicating with Eric regularly.
Grant didn’t say anything for several minutes.
Then he stood and walked outside.
I followed.
He leaned against his car.
“Was any of it real?”
I knew what he meant.
His marriage.
I couldn’t answer.
So I said the only truthful thing.
“You’ll have to ask her.”
His eyes were wet.
“I defended her against you.”
“Yes.”
“I made you feel like you were the problem.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“Can you forgive me?”
I looked at my son.
“I already love you. Forgiveness is going to require something more.”
“What?”
“Change.”
He nodded.
That afternoon Paige finally called.
Not Grant.
Me.
“You ruined everything.”
I almost hung up.
Instead I asked, “Where are you?”
“You’d love knowing that.”
“No. I’d love knowing why you practiced my signature twenty-seven times.”
Silence.
Then:
“You think you’re so important.”
“No, Paige. I think my name belongs to me.”
“You gave Grant everything.”
“I helped my son.”
“You made sure he always knew it came from you.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You own thirty-one percent of his company. You own that enormous house. You have investment accounts you barely touch while Grant works sixty-hour weeks.”
There it was.
Entitlement dressed as grievance.
“You believed my money should become yours.”
“I believed family shares.”
“Family asks.”
She laughed.
“You never would have said yes.”
“To $1.26 million? Probably not.”
Another silence.
Then she said something chilling.
“You can’t prove what you think you can prove.”
The call ended.
Nora had heard it on speaker.
She looked at me.
“She’s confident.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re still missing something.”
We found it the next morning.
A document had been notarized six weeks earlier.
It appeared to grant Paige limited financial authority over one of my investment accounts.
The signature was mine.
Except it wasn’t.
The notary was Eric Lane.
The former boyfriend.
And according to the document, I had personally appeared before him.
I had never met him.
Nora contacted the brokerage immediately.
The forged authorization had already been submitted.
A transfer request had been prepared.
But the account was frozen before any money moved.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead I stared at the document.
Because attached to it was a photograph.
It showed a silver-haired woman sitting across from Eric at a desk.
Her face was partially turned away.
From behind, she looked remarkably like me.
Grant stared at the image.
“Who is that?”
We enlarged it.
The woman wore a cream blouse.
Silver wig.
My style of earrings.
My handbag.
No.
Not merely my style.
My actual handbag.
The same brown leather handbag I had carried to Juniper House.
I checked the closet.
It was gone.
And suddenly I remembered something from the spa.
After Paige slapped me, my handbag had fallen.
For several minutes, I hadn’t been holding it.
Someone else had.
Diane.
When I called her, she started crying before I even asked the question.
May you like
And what she admitted next changed everything.
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