The Signature File Made His Girlfriend Request A Different Lawyer

Denise did not send me the email by itself.

She asked me to come in, then opened the full chain with Laurel beside her. Dates, replies, and attachments filled the screen.

The first message came from Kamran to Mara.

Use the signature from the old delivery approval. She won't go looking for this.

Mara had replied, Need a clean background. Send the better copy.

I remembered the delivery approval. It let a driver leave a test unit behind my workshop while I took my mother to an appointment.

I had signed for a metal box. They had used that signature to claim my work.

Laurel put the old approval beside the waiver, the bank change, and the rights sale. The same gray mark sat under my name on all four.

"We should still have the files reviewed," Denise said. "This isn't something we leave to how it looks on a screen."

A document examiner checked the source files and prepared a report. The signature images were the same. The three new forms had been built from that image.

The email chain explained who had asked for it and who had placed it.

I went to the restroom and stood with my palms against the cool sink.

I had expected relief. Instead, I felt sick at how little effort it had taken them to erase my consent.

When I returned, Laurel had set a glass of water at my place.

"There are more bank records," she said. "We can do those tomorrow."

"Let's do one page. Then I'll decide."

One page became five.

At noon, I opened the envelope I had brought from home. It held the old delivery approval, which I had found among receipts in my sister's box.

"I was afraid to show you," I said. "It really is my signature."

Denise read the whole page.

"You approved delivery on this date. That's what this says. It doesn't approve a sale six years later."

I had known that when I left the house. Still, I needed to hear it with the paper on the table.

Laurel added it to her list of source records. I stopped holding the envelope.

The court-ordered account statements showed that Prairie Meridian had received the full $172,800. Some had paid office rent. Some had gone to Kamran's personal account. Mara had received regular transfers labeled management draws.

None had gone to me.

"Will being his wife make that harder?" I asked.

"We'll coordinate the accounting with your divorce lawyer," Denise said. "He doesn't get to count money he took from you as money he paid you."

Mara hired her own lawyer before the next hearing. Their joint lawyer stayed with Kamran.

Her new lawyer asked to meet. Denise agreed, with all offers and facts kept on the record in writing afterward.

Mara arrived without her row of pens. She carried a small notebook with bent covers.

"I thought he owned the designs," she told me.

Laurel slid a printed email across the table.

"Why did you ask him for a cleaner signature?"

Mara pressed her lips together.

"He said you had agreed in person."

"Why remove the site schedule from my report?" I asked.

"He said you didn't want details while your mother was sick."

"Then why threaten to send my waiver to buyers?"

Her lawyer touched her arm.

She looked down.

"I wanted you to stop."

That was the first answer she gave me that did not begin with Kamran.

Her lawyer said she would return the money she had drawn and help identify the remaining funds. He did not ask me to call her innocent.

I went home with that distinction written in my notes.

At the next hearing, Denise used the emails and the examiner's report. Kamran testified that the words about using my signature had meant only that Mara should prepare drafts for my review.

"Where did you send those drafts to Mrs. Mehrabi?" Denise asked.

"We spoke at home."

"Where is the signed approval?"

"She must have lost it."

Denise showed him Mara's final message in the chain.

Bank change submitted. Waiver in close file. No need to bother her.

"Did you correct that message?"

"I don't remember every email."

"You replied, Perfect."

The courtroom stayed quiet while he read his own word.

The judge kept the preservation order in place and set the case for a final hearing. The lender, after receiving the produced records through counsel, withdrew its proposed funding for the next shelter phase.

Flint Creek offered to pay my missing royalty and pursue Prairie Meridian itself. Denise asked for a settlement conference that included everyone, so no dollar could fall between their promises.

That night Kamran sent one last offer directly to me.

Come home. I'll put the drafting table back.

I forwarded it without answering.

The following morning, a courier brought Denise a proposed judgment with Kamran's signature already on the last page.