“Yes.”
“Did you draft it?”
“No.”
“Witness it?”
“No.”
“Store it?”
“No.”
“Then what exactly can you authenticate?”
He swallowed.
“My familiarity with his signature.”
She stared.
“They brought you across the country for that?”
“Yes.”
“Who first contacted you?”
The attorney hesitated.
“An intermediary.”
“Name.”
He gave one.
Her counsel typed rapidly.
The Black woman said:
“Did you know that intermediary worked for a litigation financing firm partially owned by Meridian’s chairman?”
The attorney’s face changed.
“No.”
Her counsel looked up.
“Confirmed.”
The old attorney leaned back.
“I did not know.”
The Black woman believed him.
Maybe.
“What else?”
He looked toward the passengers.
Then lowered his voice.
“The document contains a phrase your father used often.”
“What phrase?”
Stewardship before inheritance.
Her chest tightened.
Her father had said those words.
Many times.
That made the forgery better.
Or the document real.
“Where was the original found?”
“I was told in archived files from his former private office.”
“Which office?”
The attorney hesitated.
“Westchester.”
The Black woman stared.
That office had burned eighteen months after her father died.
Electrical fire.
Records supposedly destroyed.
“How convenient.”
“Yes.”
“You think it's false?”
“I think something is wrong.”
“Why?”
The attorney leaned closer.
“Your father stopped using that exact phrase two years before he died.”
She frowned.
“He changed it.”
“To what?”
“Stewardship is inheritance.”
The Black woman sat back.
Small difference.
Critical difference.
Someone forging from older correspondence might not know.
“When did you notice?”
“Last night.”
“Did you tell Meridian?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted to see you.”
She studied him.
“Why not call?”
“I assumed communications might be monitored.”
Her counsel looked toward her.
That sounded paranoid.
It also sounded possible.
The attorney reached inside his jacket.
Removed a small envelope.
“Your father gave me this six weeks before he died.”
She stared.
“What is it?”
“He told me to keep it outside the estate file.”
“Why?”
“He said if anyone ever challenged your right to control Halcyon using his own words against you, I should give you this.”
Her skin went cold.
The attorney handed her the envelope.
Her father’s handwriting covered the front.
FOR MY DAUGHTER ONLY. IF CONTROL IS CHALLENGED.
She could not breathe for a second.
Three years.
This man had held it for three years.
Her counsel stared too.
“Why wasn't this disclosed?”
The attorney answered:
“Because the condition never occurred.”
Until now.