The bar.
The band.
The transportation.
The honeymoon arrangements.
All of them carried one signature.
Margaret Bennett.
She called the venue manager.
“Mrs. Bennett?” he answered. “Is everything all right?”
“No.”
There was a long pause.
“What do you need?”
Margaret looked again at the handprint on her face.
Then she glanced at the final document in the folder.
The one Tiffany had never seen.
“Activate the cancellation clause,” Margaret said.
But before the manager could respond, Margaret noticed a second name typed beneath her signature.
A name she had never authorized.
Who had been using her account—and what exactly had they purchased?
The name beneath hers was Daniel Bennett.
Margaret’s son.
For several seconds, she could hear nothing except the thin ringing in her ears.
Daniel Bennett.
The letters were printed in a narrow gray font beneath her own black signature. They appeared on a bank authorization form attached to the venue contract, beside a customer number she recognized and an account she had never opened.
Margaret touched the paper with one finger.
“Mrs. Bennett?” the venue manager asked through the phone. “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you recognize that authorization?”
“No.”
His breathing changed.
“Then don’t sign anything else tonight. I’m freezing the account connected to the reservation and pulling every document in our system. The cancellation clause can be activated, but I need your verbal confirmation.”
