Then asked whether the consent would still be effective if her mother's successor had already been recognized.
The lawyer explained that the answer depended on the timing, scope, and legal effect of the alleged waiver.
A valid prior agreement could sometimes remain binding.
An invalid or fabricated one could not acquire legitimacy merely because an acquiring company wanted it to.
The distinction was important.
Nia wasn't entitled to reject every document that complicated her position.
But she was entitled to ask whether the signature was authentic and whether the instrument actually covered the proposed transaction.
She requested the underlying document.
Three days later, she received a scanned copy.
At the bottom was Lorraine's name.
The date was three days before her death.
Nia sat motionless.
For several seconds, she could hear only the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
Her mother had been unconscious for most of that day.
Nia knew because she had spent the afternoon at her bedside.
She remembered the nurse adjusting the blanket.
The doctor explaining the change in Lorraine's condition.
And the terrifying silence when her mother stopped responding.
Nia stared at the signature.
It looked like Lorraine's handwriting from many years earlier.
Strong.
Smooth.
Confident.
But during the final months of her life, Lorraine's hands had trembled. When she could still write, her signature had become short and uneven, with several distinctive changes in the way she formed her letters.
The signature on the waiver showed none of those changes.
Nia felt sick.
She called her lawyer again.
"I don't think this is real."
He asked why.
She explained the hospital timeline and the handwriting.
Then he became very quiet.
"Nia, preserve everything. Don't alter the file. And don't accuse anyone publicly until we establish the facts."
She agreed.
But when she ended the call, she began crying.
Someone had used her mother's name to support a deal Lorraine had spent her final months questioning.
The following weeks were exhausting.
Nia requested information through the authorized stewardship process. The law firm representing the trust sought confirmation of the waiver's execution, delivery, and supporting records. Questions went to Jade Passage, Asterion's deal team, and the outside advisers who had prepared the acquisition documents.
Answers arrived slowly.
One lawyer said the waiver came from an older corporate archive.
Another described it as a document provided during due diligence.
A third suggested Lorraine may have approved the relevant rights through a prior transaction.
But nobody initially supplied a convincing explanation of how the signature was obtained.
Nia also learned that the company had changed its corporate document system after a major restructuring. Some older files existed in different repositories, and several records were being reconciled.