Chapter 5 - Phoenix
Daniel read the threat twice before his hands started shaking.
Then he called Officer Alvarez.
Within an hour, the hospital assigned security outside Margaret’s room and a detective named Marcus Reed took Daniel’s phone into evidence long enough to copy the message.
“Could be intimidation,” Reed said. “Could be someone trying to scare you away from the financial trail.”
“Someone mentioned my son.”
“I know.”
“No, Detective. You don’t.” Daniel’s voice sharpened. “My six-year-old watched his grandmother get pushed down a staircase. Now someone is threatening him.”
Reed met his eyes. “That’s exactly why I’m taking it seriously.”
Daniel sat with that.
Then he searched the word Phoenix.
The answer was buried twelve years back.
Before Olivia Mercer had been Olivia Mercer, she had been Olivia Ross.
Daniel knew that. What he did not know was that her younger brother, Caleb, had been charged in Arizona in connection with an investment company called Phoenix Equity Group. The case had collapsed after the primary witness disappeared and prosecutors lost key financial records.
Caleb had never gone to prison.
Olivia had told Daniel her brother died in a motorcycle accident when she was twenty-four.
Daniel stared at the old news photograph on his screen.
Caleb Ross was alive.
The same Caleb Ross his mother had written about.
When Olivia arrived at the hospital with a lawyer, Daniel met her in the lobby.
“You told me your brother was dead.”
Olivia stopped walking.
Her lawyer whispered, “Do not answer that.”
Daniel held up the article.
“Is Caleb alive?”
Olivia looked at the photograph, then at Daniel.
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than he expected.
“Twelve years,” he said. “You lied for twelve years.”
“I was ashamed of him.”
“Ethan says he came to our house.”
Olivia’s eyes flickered.
“He contacted me six months ago.”
“For what?”
“Money.”
Daniel laughed once, without humor. “There it is.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”
Her lawyer touched her arm, but Olivia pulled away.
“He said he had proof that could destroy my life.”
“What proof?”
Olivia stared at him for a long moment.
Then she whispered, “Proof that Ethan might lose everything if you found out what I did before we were married.”
Daniel felt the floor tilt beneath him.
“What did you do?”
Olivia’s eyes filled with tears.
But before she could answer, Detective Reed came through the lobby doors holding a clear evidence bag.
Inside it was a second phone.
May you like
“We found this taped beneath the nightstand in your wife’s closet,” he said.
“And Caleb Ross called it seventeen times this week.”
