I had watched him write his name thousands of times.
The impatient T.
The long sweep beneath the surname.
No forged signature.
No convenient explanation.
He had approved the transfer.
Julian stared at the document.
“Does that mean Dad was part of it?”
“I don’t know.”
He hated that phrase now.
So did I.
Rebecca sat with us at the kitchen table.
“The date matters.”
I looked down.
The transfer had occurred four years earlier.
“What about it?”
“This was before Tom started documenting duplicate equipment.”
“So?”
“So maybe the secret assistance fund came first.”
Julian frowned.
“And the other stuff happened later?”
“Possibly.”
Rebecca pulled Thomas’s records toward her.
“We’ve been reading everything as if he discovered one scheme. What if there were two?”
The idea rearranged the entire story.
One hidden fund created to help families outside rigid eligibility rules.
Then, later, someone exploiting the same accounting loopholes for personal gain.
