The Stamp in the Study
Chapter 10 - The Stamp in the Study
Officer Kim requested Claire’s permission to enter.
Claire gave it.
She, Margaret, and the officers walked through the open front door. Daniel and Vanessa remained outside under Santos’s watch.
The house smelled different.
Vanessa’s perfume hung in the hallway. Family photographs had been stacked face-down beside the stairs. Claire’s mother’s blue ceramic bowl was gone from the entry table.
Upstairs, the study door stood open.
The locked desk had been forced at one corner.
Inside, drawers were empty except for torn envelopes and a velvet pouch. Claire remembered the pouch. It once held Helen Carver’s retired notary stamp, preserved only because Helen was a family friend and Margaret planned to donate it to a local legal archive.
Officer Kim photographed everything before touching it.
The stamp was not there.
Then Claire noticed Daniel’s printer.
A sheet remained in the output tray.
It contained practice signatures.
Claire’s.
Margaret’s.
Helen’s.
Daniel had not even destroyed the drafts.
He believed Claire would be removed before anyone searched.
Officer Kim opened a cabinet after Claire gave permission. Inside were mortgage forms, a prepaid phone, and a red document box.
The missing notary stamp lay on top.
Margaret closed her eyes.
Claire stood very still.
Daniel had entered her mother’s desk, copied signatures, and used a dead woman’s seal to steal a house built from decades of work.
Officer Kim sealed the evidence.
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Outside, Daniel watched through the rain.
For the first time, he looked afraid.
