Chapter 3 - The SignatureI met my father at seven thirty that evening.
Not at home.
At his office.
Richard Vale's firm occupied twelve floors of a glass tower downtown. It had always felt enormous to me as a child.
When I was younger, I believed my father owned the entire building.
He'd laughed when I said it.
"One day you'll understand business, Ava."
I understood it now.
Which made the look on his face almost funny.
Almost.
He stood behind his desk when I entered.
He looked older.
Not physically.
Just suddenly aware that the daughter he had ignored for years knew more about his business than he did.
"You saw the papers."
"I did."
He held up a document.
"This isn't possible."
"Apparently it is."
"This signature isn't mine."
"I know."
He looked at me.
"Then whose is it?"
I took the paper.
The signature beneath the corporate authorization line was mine.
Or nearly mine.
Ava Vale.
But the handwriting was wrong.
Too deliberate.
Too clean.
I knew because I had signed thousands of legal documents.
This looked like somebody had studied my signature.
Then copied it.
"Forgery," I said.
My father nodded.
"And there's something worse."
He opened another file.
An old bank statement.
"Three years ago, twelve million dollars moved through an account connected to this structure."
I stared.
"Whose money?"
"Yours."
My stomach dropped.
"No."
"We traced it."
"You couldn't have."
"Ava."
"That account didn't exist."
"It did."
He pushed the statement toward me.
My name was printed across the top.
Below it was an address.
Our family home.
I looked at the date.
Three years before ValeCore became public.
Three years before my patents.
Three years before my company had employees.
Three years before I had told anyone outside a tiny circle what I was building.
"Where did the twelve million come from?"
My father hesitated.
"An investor."
"Name."
He didn't answer.
"Name."
He finally said it.
"Northbridge Holdings."
The room became very quiet.
I looked at him.
"You said Northbridge dissolved three years ago."
"It did."
"Then how did they transfer money to me after dissolution?"
"We don't know."
I stood.
My hands were cold.
"Who had access to this account?"
"Only the trustee."
"Who?"
My father looked away.
"Your mother."
I laughed once.
It sounded strange.
Almost broken.
"So that's why her name was there."
"I never knew."
"Did she?"
"I don't know."
I stared at my father.
"You spent years telling everyone I was too young to understand money."
He said nothing.
"You let Bianca use a platinum card while I repaired servers in a dorm laundry room."
Still nothing.
"You told me my projects were hobbies."
He finally looked up.
"I was wrong."
"That doesn't explain twelve million dollars."
"No."
"Or the forged signature."
"No."
"Or Northbridge."
"No."
My phone buzzed.
Mara.
One sentence.
Come to ValeCore immediately.
I looked at my father.
"I have to go."
"Wait."
He reached beneath his desk.
"Your mother left this in my office."
He handed me a small envelope.
My name was written across it.
In my mother's handwriting.
I hadn't seen that handwriting since childhood notes in my lunchbox.
I opened it.
Inside was one photograph.
Me at sixteen.
Standing beside Professor Elias Ward.
Behind us was the original ValeCore server rack.
The photo had been taken inside my family's garage.
I stared at it.
"I never showed Mom this."
My father whispered, "She took it."
My blood ran cold.
"Why?"
He shook his head.
"I don't know."
I turned the photograph over.
On the back, written in black ink, were seven words:
She wasn't protecting you. She was protecting herself.
I looked at my father.
"Who wrote this?"
He swallowed.
"I don't know."
My phone buzzed again.
Mara.
This time the message contained a photograph.
The front doors of ValeCore.
Broken glass.
Security guards on the floor.
May you like
And a single line beneath it.
They came for the source code.
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