Chapter 3 - Someone Helped Her
I left Claire with a police officer and went back to the mansion before sunrise.
The party was gone. The flowers were still there.
Hundreds of white roses floated in silver bowls beneath a chandelier that had watched my wife fall.
Lucas met me in the security office.
He looked exhausted.
“Show me.”
He pulled up the system logs. At 9:14 p.m., the balcony camera went offline. At 9:17 p.m., Claire fell.
My mother’s code authorized the shutdown.
“But she couldn’t have entered it from here,” I said.
“No.”
“Remote access?”
Lucas shook his head. “Disabled last year.”
“So someone was in this office.”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
“Me, two guards, your mother, and…”
He stopped.
“And who?”
“Your brother.”
Daniel.
My younger brother had arrived late to the party and left before the ambulance pulled away. At least, that was what I had been told.
I called him.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Nate?”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Were you in the security room tonight?”
Silence.
“Daniel.”
“No.”
“Your code can open the door.”
“So can Mom’s.”
“Her code shut down the camera.”
Another silence.
Then he said, “Come see me before you accuse her of something you can’t take back.”
I drove to his townhouse across town.
Daniel opened the door in sweatpants and a T-shirt. He looked terrible.
“You know something,” I said.
He stepped aside.
Inside, he poured coffee with shaking hands.
“Mom called me yesterday,” he said. “She wanted me to convince you to undo the trust changes.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her it was your money.”
“And?”
“She said Claire was turning you against the family.”
“That’s her favorite line.”
Daniel looked at me. “She also said something else.”
“What?”
“She said, ‘Once the baby is born, it’ll be too late.’”
My stomach went cold.
“Too late for what?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
I leaned closer. “Were you in the security room?”
“No.”
“Then who was?”
Daniel’s face changed.
He walked to a drawer and pulled out an old black key card.
“I found this in my coat pocket after the party.”
I took it.
A security master card.
Not Daniel’s.
Mine.
“I haven’t used this card in six months,” I said.
Daniel nodded.
“Exactly.”
My phone rang.
It was the hospital.
I answered immediately.
A nurse said, “Mr. Mercer, your wife woke up asking for you. She says she remembered something else.”
“What?”
May you like
The nurse lowered her voice.
“She says your mother whispered something before she pushed her.”
