Chapter 6 - The Woman in ConnecticutMargaret Sloan lived ninety-four miles from Manhattan.
Not Arizona.
Not Europe.
Not on an island hidden behind corporate trusts.
Connecticut.
For twenty-one years, Rebecca believed her mother was buried in Phoenix.
For nine years, I believed Ethan had no living parents.
According to property records, a seventy-six-year-old woman named Margaret Sloan owned a modest house outside Litchfield.
The purchase had been made seventeen years earlier through Northbridge Advisory.
The same company receiving four hundred thousand dollars every quarter from Mercer Dynamics.
Rebecca refused to call.
“I need to see her.”
David disagreed.
“We should involve counsel first.”
“She’s my mother.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
Rebecca looked at the driver’s-license photograph our investigator had obtained through legal databases.
Even at seventy-six, the resemblance was obvious.
The eyes.
The nose.
The slight tilt of her chin.
“I know.”
We drove to Connecticut the next morning.
David insisted an investigator follow us.
I wasn’t sure why I went.
Perhaps because Rebecca asked.
Perhaps because every lie Ethan told now felt connected to me somehow.
Mostly, I think I needed to understand the man I had married.
The house sat at the end of a narrow road surrounded by maple trees.
No gates.
No security.
No Bentley.
Just a gray Cape Cod with flower boxes and an old Subaru parked outside.
Rebecca sat frozen in the passenger seat.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“Yes, I do.”
We walked to the door.
Rebecca knocked.
Nothing.
Then footsteps.
The door opened.
Margaret Sloan looked at her daughter.
The grocery bag in her hands fell to the floor.
Oranges rolled across the porch.
Nobody spoke.
Rebecca’s face collapsed.
“Mom?”
Margaret covered her mouth.
“Oh, Becky.”
Rebecca made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
Then she stepped backward.
“You’re alive.”
Margaret began crying.
Rebecca did not hug her.
She did not move closer.
“Twenty-one years.”
“I can explain.”
“You were dead for twenty-one years.”
“I know.”
“You let me bury you.”
“There wasn’t a body.”
“The casket was closed!”
“I know.”
Rebecca shouted.
“Stop saying you know!”
I stood several feet away, feeling like an intruder at the strangest reunion imaginable.
Margaret looked at me.
“You’re Grace.”
That stopped everything.
“How do you know me?”
Her eyes closed.
“Ethan showed me photographs.”
Rebecca stared at her mother.
“You speak to him?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
Margaret said nothing.
Rebecca laughed bitterly.
“Four hundred thousand dollars every three months?”
Her mother’s face changed.
So she knew about the payments.
Rebecca walked past her into the house.
Margaret didn’t stop her.
We followed.
The living room was neat.
Family photographs covered one wall.
There were photographs of Ethan.
Dozens.
Award ceremonies.
Magazine covers.
Charity events.
There was even a photograph from our wedding.
My skin crawled.
No photographs of Rebecca.
“Why?” Rebecca whispered.
Margaret sat down.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“Your father.”
Rebecca stared.
“He was dead.”
“No.”
Another lie.
Margaret explained slowly.
Thomas Mercer had been violent.
Not constantly.
Not publicly.
But enough.
By the late 1990s, he had also accumulated gambling debts and borrowed money from dangerous people.
Margaret wanted to leave.
He threatened her.
Then a car accident gave her an opportunity.
A vehicle registered to Margaret was found burned after going over an embankment.
Police initially believed she was inside.
She wasn’t.
Thomas knew.
Together, they let the assumption stand while she disappeared under her maiden name.
“What about Dad?” Rebecca asked.
“He found me two years later.”
“Then he died.”
Margaret looked away.
“No.”
Rebecca gripped the table.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told Ethan?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Why not me?”
“Because Ethan said you had enough problems with Lily.”
Rebecca stood.
“So my little brother decided I couldn’t handle knowing my mother was alive?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It is exactly like that.”
Margaret began crying.
“He helped me.”
“With company money?”
“I didn’t know where it came from.”
“Eight million dollars?”
“It wasn’t all for me.”
David, who had remained silent until then, leaned forward.
“Where did the rest go?”
Margaret looked frightened.
“To Thomas.”
Rebecca whispered, “Dad?”
“He contacted Ethan.”
“When?”
“About six years ago.”
“What did he want?”
“Money.”
Of course.
Family tragedy had become corporate liability.
Thomas Mercer had discovered his son was now enormously wealthy.
And he wanted payment for staying away.
“How much?” I asked.
Margaret looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
“You were managing Northbridge.”
“Only on paper.”
“Who controlled the bank account?”
“Ethan.”
There it was again.
Somebody else’s name.
Ethan’s control.
I thought of Vanessa.
Rebecca.
Margaret.
Different women.
Same method.
“What did Thomas know?” David asked.
Margaret stared at her hands.
“About the company.”
“What about it?”
“He said Ethan had used something that belonged to Rebecca.”
“The intellectual property?”
She nodded.
“And?”
“There was more.”
“What?”
“Thomas helped him.”
Rebecca sat slowly.
“How?”
“When Ethan transferred assets out of RM Industrial, Dad created some of the companies.”
The room went silent.
“He was supposed to be dead by then,” Rebecca said.
Margaret nodded.
“He wasn’t.”
“So Ethan worked with him?”
“Yes.”
“To steal my company?”
Margaret began crying harder.
“I didn’t know until later.”
Rebecca walked toward the window.
For several moments, she said nothing.
Then she turned.
“Where is Dad now?”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“When did you last hear from him?”
“Eight months ago.”
My stomach tightened.
Eight months.
The same period Vanessa signed documents.
“What happened eight months ago?”
“He said Ethan owed him more.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Ethan pay?”
“I think so.”
“How much?”
“Thomas mentioned ten million.”
David and I looked at each other.
The missing money.
Seventeen million had left the company.
Seven-point-two bought the St. Barts property.
Approximately ten million remained unexplained.
Rebecca understood at the same moment.
“Oh my God.”
David asked Margaret for the phone number Thomas used.
She still had it.
Our investigator traced it within an hour.
Not to Arizona.
Not to Nevada.
To a prepaid device last active in Nassau, Bahamas.
By the time we drove back toward Manhattan, the board had more problems.
A financial journalist had obtained information about the credit freeze.
Mercer Dynamics released a statement calling it “a routine lender review.”
Nobody believed it.
Two customers postponed contracts.
A supplier demanded cash in advance.
Employees began posting anonymously online.
The company’s nine-day window was shrinking.
At four-thirty, Harold called.
“Grace, we need an answer from the trust.”
“About temporary support?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five million.”
I nearly laughed.
“You want my family to inject twenty-five million into this?”
“A secured bridge facility.”
“Secured by what?”
“Certain intellectual property.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“That may not entirely belong to the company.”
Harold became quiet.
“You’re serious.”
“Very.”
He exhaled.
“Then we have a bigger problem.”
“Yes.”
“How quickly can you get here?”
“Two hours.”
“We may not have two hours.”
“Why?”
“Ethan just called three directors.”
“He’s suspended.”
“He claims he has replacement financing.”
My stomach tightened.
“From whom?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Rebecca heard my side of the conversation.
Her face darkened.
“Ask whether it requires board approval.”
I did.
Harold answered, “Anything significant does.”
“Then don’t sign anything.”
“We’re not.”
Another voice spoke faintly in Harold’s office.
He covered the phone.
Then returned.
“Grace.”
“What?”
“We just received a wire confirmation.”
“For what?”
“Fifteen million dollars.”
“From whom?”
“A fund called Meridian Strategic Capital.”
Rebecca went completely still.
“What?” I asked her.
She mouthed two words.
My father.
“Harold,” I said, “do not touch that money.”
“Why?”
“Because I think I know where it came from.”
Forty minutes later, David’s investigator confirmed it.
Meridian Strategic Capital had been established through a Bahamian trust.
Its authorized representative was Thomas Mercer.
Ethan had found emergency funding.
From his supposedly dead father.
But the loan terms were worse than anyone expected.
Fifteen million dollars.
Thirty-day maturity.
Twenty-four percent annualized interest.
And collateral granting Meridian rights to acquire core Mercer Dynamics patents upon default.
Rebecca read the documents twice.
Then looked at me.
“He’s doing it again.”
“What?”
“He’s taking what he stole from me…”
May you like
Her voice shook.
“And handing it to our father.”
