Preston tapped his keyboard and turned the screen toward me. “The signature on the amendment reads Sandra Prescott, ma’am. A salesman named Doyle notarized it here, and he left the company last spring.” I laid my own signature beside it. The loops were wrong and the slant was too steep. I had spent thirty-one years comparing handwriting at the assessor’s office, and I knew a forgery when I saw one.

Preston hesitated, then scrolled down. “There’s a phone number attached to that driver, and the number belongs to your daughter-in-law.” Before I could speak, the glass doors swung open behind me. I turned and saw Brooke, white-faced, and beside her stood a man in blue scrubs with a hospital badge swinging from his neck. He looked straight at me and said, “Mrs. Prescott, please let me explain before you call anyone.”