Chapter 14: The 2002 Gap

I printed the authorization form. My signature stared up at me, a perfect forgery of my own hand, from a decade before I even knew the name Vane.

How?

How did they have my signature?

I rubbed my eyes, the screen light blurring into a painful halo. Then I remembered the background check. When I married Richard, Eleanor insisted on a "standard vetting." I had provided everything: birth certificate, high school transcripts, college records.

My college transcripts. From 2002.

Signed by me.

They had lifted my signature from my old student loans and pasted it onto the Trust documents. They had been planning to use me as a scapegoat since the day Richard proposed. Maybe before.

I folded the paper and shoved it into my bra. It was proof of fraud, but it wasn't enough. I needed to know *why*. Why did Catherine need $1.9 million a year? Why was she pretending to be an invalid? And what happened in 2002?

"Catherine Vane," I typed into the search bar.

I had done this before, of course. Years ago, when I first met her. The results had been sparse: a few gallery notices from the late 90s, an obituary for her father.

But this time, I wasn't looking for the artist. I was looking for the ghost.

I searched for "Catherine Vane Nevada 2002."

Nothing.

I searched for "Catherine Vane Trust."

Nothing.

I tried the address listed on the Trust authorization form. It was a PO Box in a town called Boulder City, Nevada.

I searched the property records for Boulder City.

And there it was. A deed transfer.

*January 6, 2002. Property transferred to Richard Vane and Catherine Vane.*

A small house on the edge of the desert.

I clicked on the history. The property had been sold six months later, in June 2002.

Sold by: *Richard Vane.*

There was no mention of Catherine on the sale deed.

Where did she go?

I opened a new tab and typed in "Richard Vane 2002."

I found a cached version of his old university alumni newsletter. "Class of '02 Notes."

*Richard Vane is taking a gap year to travel through Europe before joining the family firm.*

Europe. That's what he always told me. Backpacking. Hostels. Finding himself.

But he wasn't in Europe in January 2002. He was in Nevada, buying a house with his sister-wife.

I felt a vibration against my chest. My phone, tucked into my shirt pocket.

It was a text from Mark.

*I dug a little deeper into that SSN you asked about. The one linked to the 'Spouse' field.*

I held my breath.

*It doesn't belong to Catherine Vane. That SSN belongs to a woman named Catherine Blackwood. Deceased 1999.*

Blackwood.

The name hit me like a physical blow. Vane Construction had acquired Blackwood & Sons in a hostile takeover in... 2002.

The acquisition that made the Vane family billionaires.

I looked back at the screen, at the deed from Nevada. I zoomed in on the signature line.

The first deed, the purchase, was signed by "Richard Vane" and "Catherine Vane."

But the sale deed, six months later...

The clerk had made a notation in the margin. A handwritten correction in fading black ink.

*Title transfer: Sole Survivorship.*

Which meant the co-owner was dead.