I pulled the liner out of the steel trash bin under the sink and set it on the floor. Kneeling, I sifted through it, ignoring the grime coating my hands.

Near the bottom, under coffee grounds and eggshells, I found a thick stack of hand-shredded paper.

I gathered the strips and spread them across the kitchen island, then spent twenty minutes piecing them together like a forensic jigsaw.

It was a photocopy of Dad’s original Last Will and Testament — the one he’d drafted twenty years ago. Someone had sliced it straight through the signature line and through the asset distribution clauses that named me as a beneficiary.

Underneath it, I found a crumpled, stapled General Power of Attorney form. I flattened it against the counter.

The signature was a jagged, shaky scrawl — an obvious, forced attempt to mimic my father’s elegant handwriting. I turned to the notary section. The seal was smudged, but the name and state commission number were legible.