Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO LIEThe anonymous texter wanted to meet at a twenty-four-hour diner off Interstate 95.
Helen told me not to go alone.
So naturally, I went with a retired homicide detective.
His name was Frank Delaney, sixty-one years old, broad as a refrigerator, and deeply annoyed that retirement had not stopped Helen Grayson from calling him whenever somebody rich behaved badly.
At 11:07 p.m., we entered the diner separately.
The woman waiting in the last booth looked twenty-five.
Maybe younger.
She wore hospital scrubs beneath a winter coat and kept checking the entrance.
I sat opposite her.
“You texted me?”
She nodded.
“My name is Lena Ortiz.”
Frank took the booth behind us.
I asked, “How do you know Adrian?”
“I worked for him.”
“Doing what?”
“Personal assistant. Research. Scheduling. Whatever he wanted.”
“Why contact me?”
She reached into her bag.
I tensed.
She pulled out an envelope.
Inside were photocopies of bank statements and a draft affidavit.
My name appeared repeatedly.
The affidavit claimed I had diverted $3.6 million from Mercer Development through consulting companies I secretly controlled.
It claimed my father discovered the theft.
It claimed I pressured him to conceal it.
All lies.
I looked at Lena.
“Where did this come from?”
“Adrian’s office.”
“You stole it?”
“I copied it.”
“Why?”
“Because I was supposed to become the witness.”
She swallowed.
“Adrian told me I would receive fifty thousand dollars if I testified that I saw you changing invoices.”
I leaned back.
“You’ve never met me.”
“Exactly.”
“Why agree?”
Her eyes dropped.
“My mother needs dialysis. I was behind on everything. He knew.”
There was shame in her voice.
I didn’t need to punish her for it.
“What changed?”
“He started asking me to do more.”
“Like what?”
“Create emails.”
She showed me printed messages supposedly sent from my corporate account.
They were convincing.
Even the signature block matched.
“Then he asked me to put files on a laptop.”
“Whose laptop?”
“Yours.”
My skin prickled.
“I live three thousand miles away.”
“He said he could get access.”
Frank turned slightly behind us.
I asked, “When?”
“Friday night.”
The day I was originally supposed to arrive.
“What files?”
“Bank records. Transfers. Fake invoices.”
The entire plan snapped into focus.
While Vivian moved Dad toward legal incompetency, Adrian planned to make me legally toxic.
If I were under investigation, even temporarily, they could challenge my right to assume voting control.
“How were they getting into my computer?”
Lena shook her head.
“I don’t know. But Adrian said someone had access to your house.”
My Seattle house.
Suddenly I remembered something trivial.
Three weeks earlier, my smart-home system had reported a rear door opening while I was at work.
I blamed a sensor malfunction.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Lena continued.
“They also talked about your father’s accident.”
I stopped.
Dad had fallen down a short flight of stone steps five months earlier.
Doctors believed he lost his balance.
“What about it?”
“I heard Vivian tell Adrian they should’ve waited because the cameras weren’t disabled.”
“What cameras?”
“Your father’s.”
There were security cameras around the estate.
Vivian told me they had malfunctioned during a software update the week Dad fell.
I looked at Frank.
His expression had changed.
“Did they say they caused the fall?”
“No. But Adrian said, ‘One loose rail almost ruined everything.’”
My stomach twisted.
Dad hadn’t fallen because he was weak.
Someone may have tampered with the railing.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
Lena’s eyes filled.
“Because Adrian asked me yesterday whether I knew anybody who could get medication without a prescription.”
“What medication?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Did you ask?”
“He said it was to make someone ‘sleep through a hearing.’”
Dad’s guardianship hearing was Monday.
I stood.
“We’re taking this to police.”
Lena grabbed my wrist.
“No.”
“Lena—”
“He said if I talked, my mother would lose her insurance.”
“He can’t control that.”
“He owns the company my mother works for.”
Of course he did.
I sat again.
Frank joined us.
“You’ve got bigger problems than insurance,” he said gently. “If forged records get used in court, you may become part of a conspiracy unless you document what happened.”
Lena started crying.
Frank gave her a napkin.
“Good news,” he added. “You documented it.”
We left the diner with copies of everything.
At 1:30 a.m., Helen arranged for Lena to meet privately with an investigator from the state attorney’s financial crimes unit the following morning.
But our advantage didn’t last long.
At 7:05 a.m., I received a call from Vivian.
Her voice shook.
“Evie, you need to come home.”
“What happened?”
“It’s your father.”
I drove to the mansion with Frank following several cars behind.
Vivian stood outside crying when I arrived.
There were two police vehicles in the driveway.
“What happened?”
She pressed both hands over her mouth.
“Your father disappeared from the hospital.”
“That’s impossible.”
“They released him.”
“Who authorized it?”
“She said you did.”
My heart stopped.
“I did what?”
A police officer approached.
“Ms. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“We need to ask you some questions.”
“Where is my father?”
“He’s inside.”
I looked toward the mansion.
“If he’s inside, why did she say he disappeared?”
The officer frowned.
Vivian jumped in.
“I meant he disappeared from the hospital.”
“How did he get here?”
No answer.
Then Adrian emerged through the front door.
He held documents.
And he looked frightened.
Not pretend frightened.
Genuinely frightened.
That worried me.
“Evie,” he said. “You should see this.”
Inside, Dad sat in his wheelchair beside the fireplace.
He looked heavily sedated.
A small canvas bag rested near his feet.
Police stood around it.
One officer opened the bag.
Stacks of cash.
Documents.
A handgun.
And a passport.
My passport.
I stared.
“What is that doing here?”
The officer held up the bag.
“It was found in your father’s vehicle.”
“That isn’t my bag.”
Vivian began crying again.
“We think Thomas was trying to help you leave.”
“Leave for where?”
Adrian handed me the documents.
They were copies of the same fabricated financial records Lena had shown me.
Only now they bore my signature.
The officer said, “Ms. Mercer, we’ve received a complaint alleging substantial corporate theft.”
I stared at Adrian.
He stared back calmly.
They had accelerated the plan.
But something was wrong.
They were supposed to plant this evidence Friday.
Why now?
Then my phone vibrated.
A message from Lena.
ONLY three words.
HE KNOWS I TALKED.
I looked up.
Adrian was watching my phone.
That was when I understood.
He hadn’t accelerated the plan.
He was panicking.
And panicked people make mistakes.
I slipped the phone into my pocket.
“Officer,” I said, “before anybody makes another decision, there is something you need to hear.”
Vivian’s face changed.
Adrian stepped forward.
“What?”
I looked directly at my stepmother.
“A recording.”
Her eyes widened.
For the first time since I came home, Vivian looked truly afraid.
Then the front door opened.
Attorney Warren Pike entered carrying a leather briefcase.
He surveyed the room and said, “No one is listening to anything until I speak with my clients.”
My father, barely conscious beside the fireplace, suddenly whispered something.
I knelt beside him.
“What, Dad?”
His lips barely moved.
“The safe.”
“What safe?”
“Your mother’s room.”
May you like
Then his eyes closed.
And Vivian, standing ten feet away, went completely white.
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