Chapter 5 - THE PAPERS CLAIRE DIDN'T READ
The signature was real.
For three years, Beckett had brought Claire stacks of year-end documents and asked her to sign beside colored tabs. He said they concerned spousal disclosures, insurance elections, and charitable filings. Claire had signed at the kitchen island, in the car, and once while getting dressed for a gala.
She had not read them.
One document appointed her an unpaid member of the Hale Alpine benefits committee. Another certified that she had reviewed transfers from the employee retirement trust. Her title had no salary and no practical duties, but her signature gave Beckett an argument: Claire was either a participant or an unreliable woman denying her own decisions.
The pension investigator warned her that ignorance did not automatically erase fiduciary responsibility.
“Did he force your hand?” Naomi asked privately.
“No.”
“Did you understand the documents?”
“No, because I chose not to read them.”
Claire refused to build her case on a prettier lie. She signed a sworn statement admitting exactly what she had done and offered to cooperate with employees whose savings might be at risk.
The smart-home company's deeper logs gave her something stronger than denial. At 1:21 a.m., the front door was locked remotely. Over the next thirty-eight minutes, Claire entered the correct code eleven times. Each entry was rejected by an administrator override. The porch heating system was also disabled.
The commands came from the home hub using Beckett's administrator profile.
Because the hub was supposedly destroyed, the provider used server-side audit records Beckett could not erase from inside the house.
At the next hearing, he claimed an unknown intruder had compromised his profile. Grayson produced a cybersecurity expert who said remote compromise was possible.
Naomi agreed it was possible. Then she showed that Beckett's phone remained connected by Bluetooth to the home hub during every command.
The judge extended Claire's no-contact order for one year and referred the lockout evidence to prosecutors.
Beckett responded by freezing the joint accounts and canceling Claire's cards. Through counsel, he offered access to money if she returned home for “structured reconciliation.” She declined.
That night, someone broke into Margaret's house.
The intruder ignored jewelry, cash, and electronics. The old wooden desk had been forced open. The hidden panel hung crookedly from one hinge.
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The locked metal case was gone.
So were the original ledger and Thomas's microcassette.
