Easton. Forged Paternity Test
697 Words
Diane sent the first file at six-fourteen in the morning.
He heard the email arrive from the bedroom, was already at his desk by the time the second one came through, and by six-thirty he had four documents open on his screen and a feeling in his chest that he had no name for and didn't try to name.
The paternity document was real.
That was the first thing.
Filed in Austin, Texas. Nine years and two months ago. His name, printed cleanly in a field that said Alleged Father. Aurora's name directly above it. A case number. A court stamp. Official in every technical sense.
He read it three times.
Then he read the result.
Paternity: Not Established.
He sat back.
The document said the test had been completed. Said the result was negative. Said the case was closed.
He had never taken a paternity test in his life.
He had never been contacted about a paternity case. Had never received court correspondence, never been served, never spoken to a lawyer in Austin about anything other than a business contract in year three of the company.
He had been twenty-two years old and in the city for eight weeks and the only people who had known him there were colleagues from the residency program and one woman whose phone number had gone dead three days after a man in a gray suit sat in his apartment and told him she'd moved on.
The young woman he had a relationship with.
Someone had filed this document without his knowledge.
Someone had taken a test in his name.
Someone had produced a result.
And that someone had done it well enough that it had sat in a courthouse filing system for nine years without anyone asking questions.
He picked up his phone.
He called Diane.
She answered on the second ring as usual.
"The document," he said. "The signature on the paternity consent form. Can you get me a clean image of it?"
"Already sent," she said. "Second attachment."
He opened it.
He looked at it for a long time.
He had an unusual signature. Everyone who'd ever processed his paperwork said so. Compressed, angular, the E and C running into each other in a way that was almost illegible. His business manager had once made him sign the same contract four times because the notary kept questioning it.
The signature on the paternity consent form was clean.
Too clean.
Legible. Even. Every letter formed completely.
Not his.
"Diane," he said quietly. "Who notarized this?"
Keys clicking. A pause.
"A firm called Whitfield and Associates," she said. "Austin-based. They dissolved eight years ago." Another pause. "Easton. The notary license number on the stamp…"
"Was it valid?"
"It was real," she said carefully. "But the license belonged to a woman who retired two years before this document was filed."
"Someone used a dead notary's credentials," he said.
"Yes."
He closed his eyes. He opened them.
"Who filed it?"
"That's the interesting part." Diane's voice was very controlled now. The voice she used when the information was bad and she'd already decided how to deliver it. "It was filed through a legal office. The attorney of record is Raymond Holt."
"Raymond Holt has been a retainer with the office of Senator Graham Wells for eleven years."
Graham Wells.
Aurora's father.
The man who had sent someone to his apartment nine years ago.
The man who had tried to buy into his company six weeks ago.
The man whose name kept appearing at every intersection of his life that mattered in a way he was only now beginning to understand.
He thought about the voice on the phone last night.
“The child you saw today on Elmwood Street”
Someone had been watching him on Elmwood Street.
Someone who worked for Graham Wells, or against him, or alongside him in some configuration Easton hadn't mapped yet.
someone had been close enough to see him slow his car, had known exactly what he'd seen, and had called him within hours.
He was being watched.
Which meant Aurora was being watched.
Which meant Nova…
He was already standing before the thought completed.
- Writer
