“That’s because,” my mother shouted, “you seemed so busy with work overseas.”
The reason my grandmother and I couldn’t stay in touch was no longer a mystery. The physical distance and the malicious wall my parents had built between us.
Everything finally fell into place, revealing the full ugliness of what they’d done.
“That’s enough excuses,” I said, taking a deep breath and signaling to Attorney Watson. “Let’s confirm the facts from a legal standpoint.”
Attorney Watson displayed on his tablet the so-called transfer agreement that Ashley was using as the basis for her ownership claim.
“Miss Thompson, you stated earlier that this document represents a legitimate transfer from Mandy 3 years ago. Correct?”
“Yes, just look at the date,” Ashley shouted, drenched in sweat.
“Indeed, it does say that. We’ll address the handwriting shortly, but first, we conducted a digital forensic analysis of the paper itself.”
He pressed a button, and a magnified image of the document appeared. Beneath the paper fibers, a pattern of tiny dots imperceptible to the naked eye emerged.
“This is a machine identification code. Many color laser printers embed microscopic yellow dots that record the printer’s serial number and the date and time of printing.”
“What?” Ashley’s mouth fell open.
“After analyzing these dots, we determined that this document was printed exactly 6 months ago.”
“That’s strange,” I said with a cold smile. “Why would a contract supposedly signed 3 years ago be written on paper that was printed just 6 months ago?”
Then I spoke slowly and clearly. “In other words, this document was fabricated 6 months ago.”
I looked from my father to my mother and finally to Ashley.
“And I can think of exactly why you suddenly needed to forge it six months ago.”
My father’s face turned ashen.
“6 months ago, Grandma contacted you and said, ‘My work is finally stabilizing. I may return home soon,’ didn’t she?” I continued.
“You panicked. Until then, you’d been illegally occupying Mandy’s house and treating it as Ashley’s based on nothing but verbal promises. But once Grandma came back and checked the property records, your lies would be exposed. So, you hurriedly forged documents to give yourselves a legal cover.”
“That’s not…”
“But if you’d asked me to sign it, you would have been exposed. So Ashley copied my handwriting and forged the signature with a date from 3 years ago. Isn’t that right?”