Chapter 4 - The Photograph
I read the sentence three times.
“Why didn’t you show me this?”
Mom looked sick. “Because I thought it was some cruel attempt to scare me. I called Daniel that night.”
My head snapped up. “You called Daniel?”
“He said Vanessa had picked Ellie up because you were stuck at work.”
“I was never stuck at work that day.”
We both went silent.
The doorbell rang.
It was Daniel.
I told Mom to stay with Ellie and stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind me.
Daniel looked exhausted. “We need to talk.”
“Yes. Start with the forged school form.”
His face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You know about that?”
My anger sharpened. “That is not the response of an innocent man.”
“I didn’t forge your signature.”
“Who did?”
“Mom handled the paperwork.”
I laughed once. “Of course she did.”
“Claire, listen to me. Last year you were traveling constantly. Ellie had dance, school, doctor appointments—”
“So your mother erased me?”
“No. She added support.”
“She made me ‘Other Contact.’”
His jaw clenched.
“You let her.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Exactly.”
That landed.
Daniel stepped closer. “Vanessa was wrong. I told her that.”
“After she got hit back?”
He looked away.
I took out the photo.
“Who left this?”
He stared at it.
His face drained of color.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother’s car.”
“Claire, you need to stop digging through this tonight.”
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
His voice dropped. “There are things happening in my family that you don’t understand.”
“Everybody keeps saying that. Nobody keeps explaining.”
Daniel looked toward the front window, where Ellie’s sleeping shape was visible beneath a blanket.
Then he said, “My father’s trust has a clause.”
“What clause?”
“When a Mercer grandchild turns six, control of a large portion of the family assets shifts to the legal guardian named in the trust.”
I blinked.
Ellie’s sixth birthday was in eleven days.
May you like
Daniel swallowed.
“And Mom has been trying to change who that guardian is.”
