“He forced me to sign those matching grant documents,” Sloane told Vance Harrison. “I had no idea where the money came from.”

“That is a lie,” Graham shouted. “You drafted the proposal!”

“You both signed them,” Margaret said, her voice cold. “And you will both take the fall for this.”

I felt a cold draft as the heavy double doors at the back of the ballroom swung open.

Three men in dark suits stepped into the light, carrying leather briefcases.

My phone buzzed again in my hand.

It was an alert from the estate’s secure portal.

A new document had just been uploaded from an unknown IP address in Delaware.

I tapped the screen, my heart pounding against my ribs.

It was a ledger.

But it was not the ledger we had been tracking.

This one had my mother’s signature at the bottom, dated the day before she died.

I stared at the glowing blue screen of my phone.

The signature at the bottom of the PDF was unmistakably my mother’s elegant, cursive hand.

But she had been in a semi-comatose state on the day before she died.