Chapter 13 - The Accident
Rick’s statement changed everything.
He claimed Margaret had hired him first for surveillance, then for intimidation, then for something darker.
Not murder, he insisted.
“An accident.”
The phrase made me want to vomit.
According to Rick, Margaret wanted my car disabled in a way that would cause a minor crash. Something frightening enough to support an emergency guardianship petition, but not supposed to kill me.
“What did you do?” I asked through the interview-room glass while Ramirez relayed his statement.
“He says he refused the final step.”
“Do you believe him?”
“We’re checking.”
They recovered messages from a prepaid phone.
One from Margaret read:
She needs to look reckless, not dead.
Another read:
If the child is in the car, abort.
That sentence did not comfort me.
It proved she had considered the possibility.
Margaret was arrested that evening.
Her attorney called the accusations “a grotesque fiction purchased from an unreliable criminal witness.”
But the recordings, documents, forged forms, schedule, and messages were beginning to form a pattern too large to dismiss.
For the first time in days, I slept for more than three hours.
Then the district attorney called.
“There may be a problem with the trust,” she said.
“What kind of problem?”
“Your father-in-law added a sealed amendment shortly before his death.”
“What does it say?”
“We don’t know yet. The court is opening it tomorrow.”
Daniel sat across from me at the hotel table.
“Could it change the guardianship clause?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Could it give Margaret control?”
“It could.”
The next morning, we entered a private courtroom through a side entrance.
Margaret appeared in custody clothes beneath a dark coat, still somehow managing to look offended by the world.
She saw me and smiled.
Not warmly.
Confidently.
The judge opened the sealed amendment and read in silence.
His eyebrows rose.
May you like
Then he looked directly at Daniel.
“Mr. Mercer,” he said, “were you aware that your father questioned whether you were Ellie’s biological father?”
