Jonah sat beside her until she was ready to stand.
Across the city, Victor opened the restaurant office and found a courier envelope bearing the seal of Mara Armitage’s trust.
It contained a demand to preserve payroll, operating, and ownership records, together with a request for specific categories of documents.
Victor rang Dorian Rusk immediately.
This time the consultant answered with impatience.
“Stop calling from the restaurant,” Dorian said.
“They’re going to preserve every conversation.”
“There’s a letter about payroll.”
“Then stop touching payroll.”
“You told me the employee accounts were settled.”
“I told you they’d been accounted for in the transaction.
Those aren’t the same thing.”
Victor looked at the photograph behind the counter.
He had spent years telling staff that Leon had sold him everything.
In truth, he had paid Dorian a large management franchise fee for the right to run the room, with an option to acquire the business later.
That option required consent from holders of the original participation certificates.
Dorian had assured him the consent had been obtained.
Victor had never seen every signature, and he had chosen not to ask.
“If the sale fails, I lose my investment,” Victor whispered.
Dorian’s reply was cold.
“Then I suggest you remember who helped you obtain it.”
Victor ended the call and looked through the glass door at his staff preparing the dining room.
For the first time, he considered that the people he had called disposable might know enough to destroy the deal he had built his future upon.
The specialist who came to the storage locker was a small, precise woman named Grace Ishikawa.
She wore cotton gloves for handling fragile documents but reminded the family that gloves did not automatically make evidence more reliable.
What mattered was who had held the records, how they had been stored, and whether their contents could be compared with independent sources.
She photographed the drawer, the labels, the condition of the paper, and the handwritten dates before placing anything in archival folders.
“People often want a handwriting expert to declare a signature false in five minutes,” Grace said.
“The responsible answer takes longer.
We need known examples from roughly the same period, original ink where possible, and the context of the transaction.”
Nora said she had old birthday cards and medical forms signed by Ruth.
Grace requested copies but did not promise they would settle the matter.
Claire appreciated the patience until she remembered the pharmacy bill.
She asked Audrey whether investigation costs could be recovered if fraud was proved.
Audrey said some costs might be recoverable and others might never be, depending on who had authority to seek them and the terms of any eventual settlement.
