Chapter 16 of 16The Second Signature Line

The county was going to take the shop unless Thea Quinn could prove that the woman this town had buried was an owner. The proof sat on the worktable in a manila folder — the 1999 Certificate of Business Registration for The Gilded Truffle, signed out of the historical society on Eleanor Penhaligon's name and owed back within the week.

Fina Moss came through the kitchen door with rain on her shoulders and a white paper sack from the Safeway out on the highway.

"Is that it? Is that the one?"

"That's the one."

"Can I see?"

Thea slid the folder across the marble. Fina set down the sack, wiped her hands on her apron twice, and waited to be told.

"Go ahead."

She opened it at the corner, the way she opened everything fragile. "Certificate of Business Registration. The Gilded Truffle. Cascade Ridge, Washington." Her finger traced the printed heading. "Oh. Wow."

"Look at the bottom of the page."

Two ruled lines ran beneath the word Proprietor. The first held Annelise Vogel's tall, disciplined script in black ink, pressed hard enough to ridge the paper. The second was smaller and rounder, and it belonged to Margot Dubois.

Fina's finger stopped above the name and stayed there. "That's her."

"That's her."

"It's not Annelise's writing. The second one."

"No. It isn't."

"She signed right under her."

"Different pens. Same day."

The brown ink had faded to rust, but the strokes held. Thea lifted the sheet by its edges and laid it back in the folder, and for a second the shop smelled the way it had the first morning she walked into it, dust and old sugar and something underneath.

"Simon's expecting us?"

"He's expecting us."

"Then put your coat on. I'll finish the ganache."

---

Rain sheeted down Main Street and ran in the gutters past The Daily Grind, where two women in rain hats turned to watch Thea go by with a folder held against her chest. She took the outside stairs two at a time to the second floor above the hardware store, and knocked.

Simon Trent's office smelled of copier toner and the instant coffee he made in a chipped mug he kept on the windowsill. He looked up from a stack of probate filings.

"You look like a woman carrying something heavy."

"I am." She laid the folder on his desk and opened it.

He read it the way he read everything, slowly, with one finger marking his place. "Well."

"Two proprietor lines."

"I can see that."

"It's the original filing."

"Eleanor logged it out to you."

"She wants it back by Thursday."

"Then I won't keep it long." He turned the certificate toward the window and tipped it into the gray light. Then he set it down and folded his hands, and Thea recognized the fold, because it was the same one he used when he was about to tell her no.

"This changes things."

"It changes the county's view of your tax bill. It doesn't change mine of Annelise."

"I'm not asking you to change your mind about her."

"Aren't you?"

"I'm asking you to do your job."

"I was her lawyer for twenty years." He said it evenly, without heat. "She named me in her will."

"I know that too. And that will put me in this building." Thea pulled out the chair and sat, because standing over him felt like arguing. "You told me in the beginning that the terms were unusual. You told me you couldn't look at private institutional records without proof of the partnership. There it is. It's ink, Simon. It's ink on a page filed with the town."

He straightened a pen cup that did not need straightening.

"You want me to demand records from Ferncliff House."

"Request them."

"You understand the legal shape of this."

"Tell me."

"The license establishes a partnership asset. Nothing in this record dissolves it. Which means Margot Dubois holds an interest in this shop, and as executor I have to account to that interest, whether or not I like where it leads."

"Which gives you standing."

"Which gives me standing to ask. Asking is all it is." He put his hand on the certificate and left it there. "I sat with Annelise on her porch the summer before she died. She talked about the tax bill for an hour. She never once said she hadn't built this place alone."

"Ferncliff House hung up on me. A clerk, when I said the initials."

"They can hang up on a stranger. They can't hang up on the estate that paid the bill."

"When?"

"I'll draft it tonight and file Friday. A formal inquiry into the dissolution of the partnership." He pulled a legal pad toward him and wrote the date at the top in his small, square hand. "I'll need a certified copy of this for the file. Eleven dollars at the clerk's counter, and the original goes back to Eleanor before I file."

"You'll have both." Thea stood. "Thank you."

"One more thing," he said, and something in his face had changed. "Once that docket is posted, it isn't ours anymore."

"I understand."

"No. Not yet you don't."

---

Fina had the ganache finished and the display case wiped down when Thea pushed back in. The shop was warm and smelled of cream and cardamom, and the rain on the front window made the whole street blurry.

"So?"

"He's going to file."

"Friday?"

"Friday."

Fina hung the towel on its hook. "That's good, right? That's the good part?"

"That's the good part."

The shop phone rang while she was still holding her coat.

"Thea. Simon."

"You didn't finish."

"I did not." Paper rustled on his end. "When I file, it becomes a public record. The docket goes up at the clerk's counter and anybody who walks in can read it. That includes the historical society board. That includes the committee writing Annelise's tribute."

"Eleanor."

"And the people who underwrite her little museum, and the bank that carried Annelise's loans, and everyone in this town who has spent years standing in her shade." He cleared his throat. "You asked for the truth, and I'm going to help you get it. I want you to hear the rest. We are not going to get it quietly."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning someone will be standing at your counter before Friday, and I can't tell you which one of them it will be."