Chapter 14: Page Nine

Nolan's POV

Dean read the page twice under the shop light and then handed it back to me without a word.

It was seven in the morning and the bay still smelled of cold oil.

I hadn't slept.

"A million dollars," my brother said.

"It's forged."

"I believe you. I'm asking what a man looks at to prove it."

"The signature is mine. The rest isn't."

"Show that to a judge, and he says it's your word against Gerald Ashworth's." Dean rubbed his beard with a greasy knuckle. "Give it here."

He carried the page to his workbench and clipped a jeweler's loupe over one eye.

His phone sat next to the vice with a red dot on its screen.

He recorded every sick engine that came through the bay, so he could hear the knock again at night.

He bent over the paper and went very still.

"Nolan."

"What?"

"Come look at the bottom edge."

I took the loupe.

Along the very bottom of the sheet, under the signature, ran a line of grey print so small I had never seen it.

It said: Ashworth Marine Staff Agreement, page 9 of 9.

"Staff agreement," Dean said. "Somebody printed a sale of a human being on the last page of your job contract."

I got my coffee can down from the shelf over the door.

Inside, folded in thirds, was my own copy of the contract, which I'd kept for five years.

I laid it out beside the forged page.

Page 8 ended in the middle of a sentence, and in the corner it said: page 8 of 9.

"There's your ninth page," Dean said. "Gerald took it away and typed on it."

"Typed above my name."

"They left the footer because they never thought anybody'd look."

For the first time in five years I wanted to laugh.

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