Chapter 4 - Before the Baby Is Born
Claire was awake when I reached the hospital, staring at the ceiling.
I sat down beside her.
“You remembered something?”
She nodded.
Her voice was quiet.
“She said, ‘I gave you every chance to leave him.’”
I felt my fingers curl into a fist.
“Then what?”
“I told her I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Claire swallowed.
“And she said, ‘Then I’ll fix it before the baby is born.’”
The monitor beside her kept pulsing.
A steady little heartbeat.
I stood so fast the chair scraped the floor.
“Nathan.”
“I’m calling the detective.”
“Wait.”
I looked back.
Claire reached beneath her pillow and pulled out her phone.
“There’s more.”
She opened an email.
The sender was hidden behind a random address.
The message had arrived three days earlier.
LEAVE THE MERCER FAMILY BEFORE THEY BURY YOU IN IT.
My skin prickled.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I thought it was some troll. Then yesterday I got another one.”
She showed me.
YOU HAVE UNTIL FRIDAY.
Friday was the night of the gala.
“Why didn’t you show me?”
“Because your mother already said I was dramatic every time I questioned her.”
I looked away, ashamed.
For months, I had believed I could keep the peace by translating my mother’s cruelty into something softer.
She didn’t mean it that way.
She’s old-fashioned.
She’s under pressure.
I had turned excuses into a bridge that led my wife directly to that balcony.
Detective Elena Ruiz arrived an hour later. She photographed the messages, took Claire’s statement, then asked me about the trust.
I explained the shares, the voting rights, and the clause protecting our daughter.
Ruiz asked, “Who loses control if your wife and child become beneficiaries?”
“My mother.”
“How much control?”
“Enough to lose the board.”
Ruiz wrote that down.
Then her phone buzzed.
She read the screen and looked at me.
“We found the person who used the security room at 9:14.”
“Who?”
“A catering employee entered through the service hall.”
I blinked.
“A caterer?”
“He wasn’t on the employee list.”
“Then who was he?”
Ruiz turned her phone around.
The security still showed a man in a black catering jacket, face partly hidden.
I knew him immediately.
May you like
So did Claire.
“My mother’s driver,” I said.
