“Apparently they were hoping the court would hold that against you,” Emmett replied.
He slid another sheet across the desk. Laurel Ashford’s signed statement.
In it, Laurel claimed Dorothy had been “hysterical” at the hospital, “aggressive” at the pediatrician’s office, and “incapable of respecting the father’s primary role.” She suggested Dorothy’s presence might damage the babies’ emotional development.
Dorothy put the paper down carefully.
“Pearls and poison,” she murmured.
Emmett almost smiled. “I always suspected.”
But if Grant’s team meant to define Dorothy first, they had underestimated the paperwork Colleen left behind.
By then, Emmett’s office had assembled a timeline the length of a dining table: affair records, bank transfers, the forged increase to Colleen’s life insurance policy six months before delivery, and the proof that the signature on the new insurance documents did not match her known handwriting.
A handwriting analyst’s report sat clipped to the file.
“High probability of forgery,” the expert wrote.
Dorothy read that line twice.
Grant had not merely lied to Colleen.
He had planned around her.