Chapter 8 - The Signature
Daniel took the document and read it twice.
“That isn’t my signature.”
Charles shook his head sadly. “You were drinking heavily after the accident. You signed dozens of things.”
“I know my own name.”
“Do you?” Charles asked softly.
Daniel stepped toward him, but Marcus moved between them.
“Not here.”
The police separated the brothers while a detective named Lena Ortiz examined the papers.
Sarah sat with Emily and the twins in the library.
Emily’s hands shook constantly.
“What happened after the crash?” Sarah asked.
Emily closed her eyes.
“I remember rain. A truck. Glass. Then a hospital room.”
“Was Vanessa there?”
“She was the first face I saw.”
Sarah felt a chill.
Emily continued. “She told me Daniel and the twins were dead.”
From the doorway, Daniel whispered, “God.”
Emily looked at him.
“For months, I believed I had nothing left.”
She had been transferred to a private rehabilitation facility under a false name. Medication kept her confused. When fragments of memory returned, staff told her they were hallucinations.
“Then I saw Charles,” she said. “He visited Vanessa. He thought I was asleep.”
“What did they say?” Daniel asked.
Emily swallowed.
“They said the trust couldn’t be touched while I was legally alive.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
The Mercer family trust controlled forty-one percent of Mercer Dynamics. Under Daniel’s father’s will, if Daniel died while his children were minors, the voting shares would be held for Noah and Mia by their surviving parent.
Emily.
If Emily were dead, the temporary trustee would be Charles.
Sarah understood before anyone said it.
“They needed Emily dead on paper,” she said.
Daniel nodded slowly. “And they needed me vulnerable.”
Detective Ortiz entered.
“We found something on Vanessa’s laptop.”
She placed a printed bank statement on the table.
Millions had moved from a Mercer holding company into accounts controlled by shell corporations.
One account ended in the same four digits as Charles’s private investment fund.
Daniel looked at his brother through the glass doors.
Charles was speaking calmly to an officer.
Too calmly.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
The caller ID showed the pediatric clinic.
He answered.
A nurse spoke fast.
“Mr. Mercer, someone called thirty minutes ago and tried to authorize an emergency pickup of Noah and Mia.”
Daniel’s blood ran cold.
“Who?”
May you like
The nurse hesitated.
“They used your voice.”
