Chapter 2 - The Rest of the FileOwen didn't answer immediately. He glanced toward the glass door of the office, as if checking that Marcus — who had followed us in and was now hovering by the entrance with his hands jammed into his pockets — was still out of easy earshot.
"This authorization," Owen said, tapping the tablet, "was the third one this season."
The words landed somewhere behind my ribs. "The third."
"There was one in April, for a weekend up to St. Michaels. One in June, an overnight. And this one." He hesitated. "I assumed you knew. Your husband said you'd been swamped with the estate, that he was handling logistics on your behalf. He had power of attorney paperwork on file — or at least, paperwork that looked like power of attorney."
"I never granted him power of attorney over my father's estate," I said. My voice came out flatter than I felt. "I have my own accountant. My own lawyer. I would know."
Owen turned the tablet again, scrolling. And there it was — a scanned document, dated five months earlier, bearing what was unmistakably an attempt at my signature beneath a paragraph of legal language granting Marcus authority to "manage day-to-day decisions regarding the vessel Wanderlust, including but not limited to scheduling, maintenance authorization, and guest access."
I had never seen this document in my life.
"Marcus." My voice finally found its edge. He was still standing by the door, and when I turned to look at him fully, something in his expression had shifted from defensive to something closer to resignation, like a man watching a wave he could no longer outrun.
"I can explain," he said again, the same three words he'd been repeating for twenty minutes, as if repetition alone might eventually make them true.
"Then explain the power of attorney with a signature that isn't mine."
"You were so overwhelmed," he said. "After the funeral, after the estate paperwork, you weren't sleeping, you weren't eating, you were crying in the closet so I wouldn't hear you — I thought I was helping. I thought if I just handled the boat, one less thing—"
"You forged my name."
"I didn't forge anything. I signed on your behalf. There's a difference."
"There is no difference, Marcus. Not legally, and not to me."
Owen, to his credit, had the good sense to step back slightly, giving us what little privacy the small office allowed, though I could see in his face that he was already calculating what this meant for the marina, for his own liability, for the very real possibility that he had unknowingly witnessed — and processed — fraudulent paperwork three separate times.
"I'd like copies of all three authorizations," I told him. "Today. And I want the account locked. No further access to the Wanderlust without my direct, in-person signature. Not a phone call. Not an email. Not my husband's word."
"Of course," Owen said. "I'll also need to flag this internally. If the power of attorney document is falsified, that's—" He stopped himself, clearly not wanting to say the word fraud out loud in front of the person who might have committed it.
"I understand what it is," I said.
Marcus took a step closer, lowering his voice as if that alone might make the moment feel more manageable. "Diane. Think about what you're doing. If you make this into a legal thing, it becomes a legal thing. Do you really want lawyers involved? Do you want your father's estate dragged through—"
"My father's estate is already dragged through it," I said. "You dragged it there. I'm just finally looking."
Something about the word finally seemed to land on him harder than anything else I'd said. He went quiet.
Out on the dock, through the office window, I could see Brooke had climbed off the boat and was standing awkwardly near the gangway, her friends murmuring to each other, the champagne bottle abandoned and sweating in its bucket. She caught my eye through the glass for half a second, and something crossed her face that might have been guilt, or might simply have been the recognition that the fun weekend she'd been promised had just evaporated.
Owen printed the three authorization forms and slid them across the counter to me, along with a business card. "That's the marina's general manager," he said quietly. "If you do end up needing something in writing from us — a statement, records, whatever — she'll want to be looped in early. We take this seriously."
"Thank you," I said, and I meant it. In eighteen hours of humiliation, he was the first person who had simply told me the truth without flinching.
I folded the papers into my bag, my hands steadier now than they'd been at 1:47, though I couldn't have said whether that was strength or simply the numbness of shock finally arriving to do its work.
"Diane," Marcus said one more time, softer now, as I walked past him toward the door. "Please. Let's just go home and talk about this like adults."
I stopped in the doorway, the afternoon sun bright and indifferent on the water behind him.
"We will talk," I said. "But not at home. And not just the two of us."
May you like
I didn't wait to see his face change. I already knew what it would look like — the particular blend of fear and calculation that I now understood I'd been watching, in smaller doses, for longer than I wanted to admit.
I walked to my car with three forged documents in my bag and the beginning of a plan I didn't yet fully understand forming somewhere beneath the numbness, cold and clear as the water in the harbor.
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