The Second Signature

Roman Voss had been a financial reporter for nine years, long enough to recognize a leak dressed up as an accident.

The screenshot had come from an anonymous account, no name, no history, just a single post and then silence. But the numbers were real — Voss had checked them against filings twice.

He called the tip line at Ravenscroft Group at nine a.m. sharp.

"I need a comment on the discrepancy between the announced Southeast Asia partnership and the Q3 filings," he said.

The PR assistant put him on hold for four minutes and came back with nothing.

Voss didn't wait for comments. He started pulling contracts.

By noon he had copies of three signed agreements, obtained through a source he wasn't naming, and something about them nagged at him. He wasn't a document examiner, but he'd seen enough forged signatures in nine years to know the difference between a hand that signed under pressure and a hand that had practiced.

Percival Ravenscroft's signature on all three contracts was the same. Too much the same. No natural drift, no variation — the kind of consistency that came from someone copying a shape, not signing their own name.

He called a handwriting analyst he trusted.

"Send me the samples," she said.

Meanwhile, at Ravenscroft Group, Emeric was in a meeting he hadn't asked for.

"Legal wants to know," said the head of compliance, sliding a folder across the table, "who logged into the contract system at 11:47 p.m. on three separate occasions in July."

Emeric kept his face still. "I'd have to check."

"Check fast. Because it wasn't Percival's badge."

Across town, Voss's phone buzzed with a text from the handwriting analyst.

*Got a preliminary read. You're going to want to sit down for this one.*

He hadn't even sent her the analyst's most important clue yet — that beneath one contract's signature, faint under UV light, was a second name, half-erased.

Not Percival's.