Chapter 16 - What My Mother Left Behind
My mother, Harriet Mercer, had died of cancer when I was twenty-four. She loved terrible detective novels, wore gardening gloves with holes in the fingers, and built the foundation's first free pediatric therapy program long before my father turned it into a glittering brand.
She had left me a fountain pen and a box of recipe cards. I never thought she might also have left evidence against her own husband.
"Where's the letter?" I asked Mara.
"In a blue folder behind Theo's whale painting, with the copies I made. I photographed the letter, too, but my phone disappeared after the crash."
Mara remembered finding an old reference to a protected care trust while reviewing hospital contracts. Harriet had set aside money that could be used only for direct patient services, overseen by independent trustees. After her death, Arthur had quietly shifted expenses from the unrestricted foundation to that trust, reimbursing his shell vendors for work nobody performed.
"Your mother wrote that any trustee who hid a conflict of interest could be removed," Mara said. "She named a separate auditor. Arthur never told you that person existed."
"Who was it?"
"Sylvia."
That explained why Sylvia's invoices mattered and why Arthur had spent years keeping her at the edge of financial meetings.
Grant and I went to my house with a uniformed officer, who accompanied us because of the threats against Theo. The house looked untouched. Somebody had left a breakfast cup beside the sink and turned down the thermostat.
Upstairs, the nursery door stood open.
The blue whale picture was gone.
My hands shook as I studied the clean rectangle on the wall. On the floor lay a bent picture hook.
"He took it," I said.
Grant photographed the room. The officer recorded our account and asked who had lawful access.
Then I noticed a pale corner sticking out beneath Theo's dresser. A scrap of blue paper, torn from the backing of the frame. Mara had written three tiny stars on it.
We followed the officer's direction not to disturb it until he documented the scene.
On the reverse was a line in my mother's handwriting. I knew the looping H from the recipe cards.
When the picture is gone, look where the music lives.
May you like
I stared at Theo's empty crib.
His wooden music box had disappeared, too.
