Linda backed away from the table.
Her hand was over her mouth.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“Eleanor, I swear I didn’t know about the signatures.
He told me Thomas had agreed to help us financially—”
“And you believed him,” I said.
“Because it was easier to believe him than to ask me.”
Linda’s eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t know.
I swear I didn’t know.”
Grace slid a document across the table.
“This is a settlement offer.
Full repayment of $187,000 within thirty days.
A signed confession.
And an agreement not to contest any future civil or criminal proceedings.
If you sign, we avoid filing charges.”
Gerald looked at the document.
Then he looked at me.
“You’d really send me to prison?” he asked.
“You stole from a dying man, Gerald.
You stole from his widow.
You forged my signature for thirty years.
What did you think would happen?”
“I thought you’d never find out,” Gerald said quietly.
I stared at him.
He didn’t look away.
He had simply believed he would never be caught, and now he was sitting here, saying it out loud, with the proof spread across the table in front of him.
“Sign it,” Linda said.
Gerald looked at her.
“Linda—”
“Sign it, Gerald.
I’m not going down with you.”
Gerald picked up the pen.
His hand shook as he signed the confession.
Linda watched him, her arms crossed, her face hard.
When it was done, Grace collected the papers and stood.
“You have thirty days,” she said.
“If the money isn’t repaid in full, we file charges.”
Gerald stood and walked to the door.
He stopped with his hand on the frame.
“Eleanor,” he said without turning around.
“I told myself it wasn’t really stealing.
I told myself you’d never miss it.
I was wrong.”
