Chapter 5

Grant pushed his chair back from the desk — a slow, deliberate movement, hands flat on his thighs. Through the bullpen windows, the afternoon light was starting to yellow, casting long shadows across the floor.

"I didn't sign anything," he said.

Vera pulled the gray binder from her jacket and set it on the desk between them. She didn't open it. She just let it sit there.

"So, this is a lie?"

Grant looked at the binder. Then at her. The muscles in his jaw worked.

"Where did you find that?" he asked. His voice was low, pitched for only her to hear. This wasn't insubordination anymore. This was somebody asking a question because they needed to know which way the wind blew.

"Under the carpet pad in Brant's office," Vera said.

Grant's mouth opened. Closed. He looked around the bullpen — officers at their desks, pretending not to stare, the scanner crackling — and then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice dropping to a whisper.

"I didn't sign that page," he said. "The one in the trash. I saw it for the first time when you pulled it out."

"Then who signed it?"

"I don't know. But it wasn't me."

"Your signature's on it."

"I know what my signature looks like," Grant said, and there was the first real texture in his voice — frustration, maybe desperation. "That one's close. It's good. But it's not mine. My G doesn't loop like that. I sign with a straight tail."

Vera pulled the crumpled document from her pocket, unfolded it, and laid it on the desk. The signature gleamed under the fluorescent light. She looked at it, then at him.

"Show me your signature," she said.

Grant reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded receipt — a gas station purchase, itemized, with a signature scrawled at the bottom. He slid it across the desk.

She compared the two. The G on the receipt had a sharp, vertical tail, no loop. The G on the document had a loop, a flourish. The letters matched in slant, but they were different — subtle enough that a casual glance would say they were the same hand, detailed enough that a forensic examiner would flag the difference.

"Good copy," she said.