Chapter 13 - A Dead Man's Initials
Robert Mercer had been dead for seven years.
Yet his initials appeared on transactions made last month.
For the first time since the staircase, Daniel wondered whether he understood any part of the story.
Martin opened the old estate documents from the safe-deposit box.
“Your father created several holding companies before he died,” he said. “Some used his initials as internal codes.”
“So R.M. could be a company.”
“Or someone pretending to be him.”
Reed leaned forward. “Who had access to those structures?”
Martin answered reluctantly. “Me. Margaret. Daniel. Simon.”
“And Olivia?”
“Not officially.”
Daniel heard the word.
“Officially?”
Martin looked uncomfortable.
“About a year before Robert died, he asked me to prepare a private loan for Olivia.”
Daniel stared at him.
“What loan?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
“He would not say. He made me promise not to tell you unless the loan defaulted.”
Daniel stood so abruptly his chair scraped backward.
“My father gave my wife two hundred thousand dollars behind my back?”
“Yes.”
“And she never told me?”
“No.”
Reed asked the obvious question. “Where did the money go?”
Martin searched the file.
“To Phoenix.”
Daniel felt rage rising again, but beneath it was something else—betrayal stretching backward beyond his marriage.
His father had known.
Not everything, perhaps. But enough to pay.
That evening, Daniel went home and opened a storage cabinet in the garage where boxes from his father’s old office had sat untouched for years.
Ethan stayed nearby with Officer Alvarez.
“Can I help?” he asked.
Daniel almost said no.
Then he remembered how many adults had hidden things in the name of protecting someone.
“Yeah,” he said. “You can hand me the folders.”
They searched for two hours.
Near the bottom of the last box, Ethan found a small voice recorder.
A piece of masking tape on the back read: OLIVIA - APRIL 14.
Daniel pressed play.
His father’s voice came through the speaker.
“Olivia, I paid Caleb. This is the last time.”
Olivia sounded younger. Frightened.
“I know.”
“If he contacts you again, you tell Daniel.”
“I can’t.”
“You can, and you will.”
Then a third voice entered the recording.
A man Daniel recognized instantly.
Simon Vale.
“Robert,” Simon said, “you’re making a mistake.”
May you like
Daniel stopped breathing.
Simon had been involved seven years earlier too.
