Chapter 4 - THE PACKAGE EMILY MAILEDThe bullet missed my father by eighteen inches.
I know because Detective Chen showed me the trajectory later.
Through the front window.
Across the living room.
Past the edge of the sofa.
Into the wall exactly where Dad’s head would have been if I hadn’t pulled his wheelchair sideways.
Eighteen inches.
That number lived in my mind for months.
At the hospital, Dad needed seven stitches where he had struck the coffee table during the fall.
Lily sat on my lap in the waiting room wearing a police department sweatshirt three sizes too big because shattered glass had gotten into her dress.
She hadn’t spoken for almost an hour.
Finally she whispered, “Are bad people coming back?”
I held her tighter.
“No.”
It was a promise I had no right to make.
But parents lie sometimes because a child deserves one safe minute.
“Detective Chen is protecting us.”
“Is Uncle Derek bad?”
My throat closed.
I didn’t know how to answer.
Before I could, Chen approached.
“Nathan.”
Her expression told me this wasn’t good news.
I handed Lily to a victim advocate and walked several feet away.
“We found the SUV.”
“Who was driving?”
“Abandoned behind a grocery warehouse. Stolen plates.”
“Derek?”
“He was still inside your house with officers when the shot was fired.”
My anger stalled.
“So he didn’t do it.”
“He didn’t pull the trigger.”
Important distinction.
“Could he have ordered it?”
“We’re looking at that.”
“Why shoot at my father?”
Chen glanced through the glass toward Dad’s treatment room.
“Because someone might know he was about to tell us where Emily sent something.”
The package.
I had almost forgotten.
We went into Dad’s room once the doctor finished.
A bandage wrapped his forehead.
He looked exhausted.
But when Chen placed the letter board in front of him, he immediately began spelling.
L-A-W-Y-E-R.
Emily had mailed the package to a lawyer.
“Who?” I asked.
He spelled:
S-A-R-A.
Then paused.
M.
“Sarah M?”
Dad shook his head.
Tried again.
S-A-R-A-H.
M-I-T-C-H—
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I stared at it.
Chen saw.
“Speaker.”
I answered.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then a woman spoke.
“Is this Nathan Cole?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Sarah Mitchell. I’m an attorney in Raleigh.”
Every person in the room went still.
“How did you get my number?”
“Your wife gave it to me.”
I gripped the phone harder.
“My wife is dead.”
“I know.”
“Why are you calling?”
There was a pause.
“Because Emily instructed me to call you if she failed to contact me by five o’clock last Friday.”
Last Friday.
The day she died.
My knees weakened.
“Did she send you a package?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Dad closed his eyes.
Chen moved closer.
“Ms. Mitchell, this is Detective Laura Chen with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. I need you not to discuss the contents of that package over the phone.”
Sarah’s tone changed instantly.
“Why?”
“Because someone just fired a gun into Mr. Cole’s house shortly after we learned the package existed.”
Silence.
Then Sarah said, “I’m not at my office.”
“Good. Don’t go there. Give me your location privately.”
Within twenty minutes, Raleigh police were contacting her.
The package would be secured.
But Sarah gave us one piece of information voluntarily.
Emily had come to her through a college friend.
The first contact occurred six weeks earlier.
Emily had said she suspected a relative was stealing from multiple accounts and using forged authorization documents.
“She wouldn’t name him initially,” Sarah told us.
“Later she did?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Chen already knew.
We all did.
Still, hearing the name felt like another wound.
“Her brother. Derek Mercer.”
Margaret arrived at the hospital an hour later with an attorney.
Not to see Dad.
Not to see Lily.
To demand access to my daughter.
“No,” I said.
Margaret blinked.
“I’m her grandmother.”
“And she told me you locked Emily in the basement.”
“My attorney has advised me not to discuss allegations.”
“Then my attorney would advise me not to hand my child to someone suspected of imprisoning her mother.”
Her composure cracked.
“I did not hurt Emily.”
“You locked the door.”
Tears appeared.
“That was a mistake.”
“You had a key in your hand.”
“Derek told me Emily was hysterical.”
“So you locked a claustrophobic woman in a basement?”
“I thought she needed to calm down.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
It came out ugly.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“You don’t understand my son.”
“No. Apparently your daughter did.”
Margaret’s eyes sharpened.
“You think Emily was some innocent little detective? She was blackmailing Derek.”
I stopped.
Her attorney touched her arm.
“Margaret.”
But it was too late.
“What did you say?”
She realized the mistake immediately.
“She threatened him.”
“With what?”
“I’m done speaking.”
“Because you know what he did.”
“Nathan—”
“You knew.”
Her face folded.
Not entirely.
But enough.
“I was trying to protect my family.”
“Emily was your family.”
That hit her.
She sat down.
Her attorney asked me to leave.
I didn’t.
Margaret stared at the floor.
“Derek came to me months ago. He said there were accounting mistakes after Thomas died.”
“Mistakes?”
“He moved money.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
Her attorney interrupted again.
She waved him away.
“Initially? Maybe two hundred thousand.”
My stomach tightened.
“And then?”
“He said he could replace it.”
“How?”
“He had investments.”
“Gambling.”
Her eyes snapped to mine.
“You knew?”
“My father did.”
Margaret began to cry.
Not theatrically this time.
Real tears.
“I didn’t know how bad it had become.”
“How bad?”
“After Thomas died, Derek had access to several trust accounts. He borrowed against things. Moved funds between clients. He kept insisting he could fix it before anyone noticed.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Margaret.”
“Millions.”
I felt physically sick.
“And Emily found out?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“One of the accounts was hers.”
Emily had inherited money I barely knew existed.
She lived simply.
Freelance illustration.
Used coupons.
Bought Lily’s clothes at Target.
She had once yelled at me for spending $180 on a coffee grinder.
“How much did Derek steal from Emily?”
Margaret whispered, “Almost seven hundred thousand dollars.”
I stared.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Maybe because she knew what you’d do.”
“What would I do?”
“Go to the police.”
“Exactly.”
Margaret’s voice dropped.
“She still loved him.”
That was the tragedy of Emily.
She loved people past the point where they deserved it.
She had given Derek time.
Probably demanded he confess.
Probably believed there was still a brother somewhere inside the fraud.
“What happened the day she died?”
Margaret wiped her face.
“I went there to talk.”
“With cupcakes?”
She looked startled.
“Lily remembers.”
“Yes.”
“Why cupcakes?”
“Because I didn’t want Lily frightened.”
The casual cruelty of that answer chilled me.
“You brought a six-year-old cupcakes so she wouldn’t notice you were confronting her mother?”
“I expected a conversation.”
“And Derek?”
“He arrived later.”
“What happened?”
Margaret looked toward the ceiling.
“Emily told him she had sent evidence to a lawyer. Derek panicked.”
“The package?”
“I didn’t know where it was.”
“Then why lock her downstairs?”
“Derek said he needed five minutes to search her office.”
“You helped him.”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Emily got out.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
Margaret looked at me.
“She found the emergency key.”
“What emergency key?”
“One you kept on the shelf near the water heater.”
I had forgotten.
“She came upstairs. She and Derek were screaming. I went into the kitchen because Lily was crying.”
“Where was Dad?”
“Living room.”
“What happened to Emily?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I heard something fall.”
My heart started hammering.
“When you came back?”
Margaret’s lower lip shook.
“She was at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Basement stairs?”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“The main staircase.”
Everything I had been told said Emily fell down the basement stairs.
Even the funeral arrangements had proceeded under that assumption.
Margaret whispered, “Derek moved her.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“He what?”
“He said the police would ask too many questions if she was found by the main stairs because they might see what happened in the hall.”
“What happened in the hall?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop lying!”
The hospital corridor went silent.
Margaret’s attorney stood.
I leaned toward her.
“What happened to my wife?”
She looked directly into my eyes.
And whispered:
“She was still breathing when Derek carried her downstairs.”
My entire body went numb.
Then came the worst part.
Margaret covered her face.
“I told him to call an ambulance.”
“And?”
“He said if we called too soon, she might wake up.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Chen stepped forward.
“What exactly did Derek say?”
Margaret began sobbing.
“He said, ‘If Emily wakes up, we all go to prison.’”
I backed into the wall.
Emily hadn’t died from a fall.
She had survived the first injury.
They had known.
And instead of saving her—
They waited.
My phone rang again.
This time Chen’s.
She answered, listened, and looked at me.
“Raleigh police have the package.”
I wiped my face.
“What’s inside?”
“A hard drive, bank records, copies of altered trust documents…”
May you like
She paused.
“And a handwritten letter from Emily addressed to you.”
Related Stories
