Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Signed as Evelyn
My mother stared at the signature on the insurance consent form.
“That isn’t mine.”
The handwriting looked like hers.
That was the problem.
It looked almost perfect.
Samantha sent it to a document examiner.
Then Tyler opened the second binder.
Inside were photographs.
My parents.
Frank and Denise.
Company picnics.
Christmas dinners.
A younger Evelyn holding me as a baby.
My mother’s face changed.
“I remember this.”
I turned toward her.
“You said you barely knew the Walkers.”
“I thought I did.”
She picked up one photograph.
“My memories around that period are strange. Your father stopped taking me to company events after you were born.”
In the corner stood a woman who looked remarkably like Evelyn.
Same height.
Same hairstyle.
Almost the same face.
But not quite.
“Who is she?”
Mom stared.
Then whispered, “My sister.”
I had heard about Aunt Elaine exactly twice.
She and Mom had become estranged before I was old enough to remember her.
“Elaine disappeared,” Evelyn said. “She stopped answering us. Dad said she moved west.”
Tyler looked uncomfortable.
“She didn’t.”
He opened the third binder.
There were payroll records for Elaine Morgan.
North Star had paid her for another twelve years.
Long after my mother believed she had vanished.
“What did she do?”
Tyler shook his head.
“I only know Mom called her ‘the witness.’”
A cold feeling moved through me.
The document examiner called that evening.
The signature on the insurance authorization was not Evelyn’s.
But several characteristics suggested it had been written by someone with intimate familiarity with her handwriting.
A sister could have had that.
Then Samantha found Elaine’s last known address.
It was less than thirty miles away.
She had been living under another surname.
Alive.
We drove there with an investigator the next morning.
The house was empty.
No furniture.
No photographs.
Only one kitchen chair and an unplugged refrigerator.
Someone had left quickly.
On the chair sat an envelope.
My name was written across it.
Rachel.
Inside was a single photograph.
Mark at twenty-nine years old.
Standing beside Elaine.
The picture was dated one week before he first contacted me.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
He was never supposed to marry her.
