Chapter 9
The police took the threat seriously.
So did I.
Within an hour, Lily and Rachel were moved again.
Nobody outside a tiny circle knew where.
Maria stayed with them.
I wanted to be there.
Instead, I spent half the night answering questions.
The anonymous phone had used routing software.
The photograph had been taken with a long lens.
Whoever sent it knew about Reeves.
That narrowed the circle.
Claire.
Ethan.
Jonathan.
Rachel.
Me.
Possibly Reeves himself.
And whoever had been watching all of us.
At three in the morning, Claire called.
"I got one too."
My exhaustion disappeared.
"What?"
"A message."
"What does it say?"
She sent a screenshot.
YOU SHOULD HAVE CONTROLLED YOUR HUSBAND.
Then another.
ETHAN IS NO LONGER USEFUL.
I called Jonathan.
He arranged for police to meet Claire immediately.
Then I called Ethan.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I called Rebecca.
"Have you heard from Ethan?"
"Not since this afternoon."
"Do you know where he is?"
"No."
I opened our employee location app.
Executive devices were normally visible during business travel, though anyone could disable it.
Ethan's company phone was still active.
Location: Logan International Airport.
I called airport police.
By the time Jonathan and I arrived, Ethan was sitting in a private security office.
He wasn't under arrest.
He had been stopped before boarding a flight to London because company counsel had flagged potential removal of confidential documents.
He looked furious when he saw me.
"You did this?"
"You were leaving the country."
"For a meeting."
"At four in the morning?"
"Six fifteen flight."
"With company files?"
He leaned back.
"You don't own me."
"No. But the company owns the laptop in your bag."
He looked at Jonathan.
"I want my attorney."
"Call him."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"Paul isn't answering."
Interesting.
"Someone threatened Lily tonight."
That changed him.
"What?"
I watched closely.
If he was acting, he was good.
I showed him the photo.
His face went pale.
"Where did you get that?"
"Claire had a second phone."
He looked genuinely afraid.
"You need to move Lily."
"Already done."
"Again."
"Why?"
"Because whoever sent that knows how to find her."
"Who?"
Ethan looked around the room.
Then whispered, "Paul."
Jonathan stiffened.
"Mercer?"
Ethan nodded.
"Why Paul?"
"Because Meridian isn't mine."
I laughed.
"Your family trust owns it."
"No."
"Maya traced it."
"My family trust is the beneficiary on paper. Paul controls it."
"Why?"
"My mother appointed him years ago."
Jonathan frowned.
"Paul would have been extremely young."
"He worked for my father's attorney."
"Doing what?"
Ethan rubbed his face.
"I don't know everything."
"Start with what you do know."
For the first time, Ethan looked broken.
He admitted that his mother had raised him on a single story.
Robert Bennett stole from Edward Cole.
Robert destroyed their family.
Robert covered up a fertility clinic scandal.
When Ethan joined my company, he hadn't planned revenge.
At least, he claimed he hadn't.
We had been friends already.
We built Bennett Holdings together.
Then after Margaret died, Paul Mercer contacted him about the family trust.
Inside were files.
Clinic records.
Payments.
A partial inventory log containing Caroline's embryo numbers.
"That's when I started investigating."
"By sleeping with Claire?"
He looked away.
"No."
"Then when did that become part of your investigation?"
His shame was obvious.
"It wasn't supposed to happen."
I almost hit him.
I wanted to.
But Lily needed answers more than I needed satisfaction.
"So you approached Claire."
"I told her about the clinic."
"She panicked."
"Yes."
"And you used it."
His silence answered.
"You told her I was dangerous."
"I told her your father covered it up."
"You knew that wasn't true."
"I believed it was."
"Reeves says your mother stopped the investigation."
His eyes snapped up.
"What?"
I watched him process it.
Either he was the best liar alive, or he genuinely didn't know.
I explained what Reeves showed us.
Ethan became still.
"My mother wouldn't do that."
"Sound familiar?"
He glared at me.
I almost smiled bitterly.
For once, we were standing in the same place.
Both sons defending parents we didn't fully understand.
"Paul showed me documents," Ethan said.
"Paul seems to show everyone documents."
"He told me Robert blackmailed my mother."
"For what?"
"For involvement in the embryo transfers."
"Maybe she was involved."
"No."
"You don't know."
He looked away.
I continued.
"And the transfers from Bennett Holdings to Meridian?"
He rubbed his jaw.
"I authorized them."
"Thirty-two million dollars of exposure."
"I thought I was recovering assets stolen from my family."
"By stealing them from me."
"By moving them before the trust activated."
"The trust."
His expression shifted.
"You still don't understand that."
"Then explain it."
"The Lily trust is real."
"Fine."
"But Claire isn't supposed to remain trustee."
I frowned.
"What?"
"The full trust has a succession clause."
"Who becomes trustee?"
He stared at me.
"Paul."
The room went silent.
There it was.
If I was removed, shares moved to Lily's trust.
Claire initially controlled them.
But if Claire was deemed unfit, incapacitated, divorced under certain conditions, or accused of harming the beneficiary...
Paul Mercer became successor trustee.
I felt physically sick.
"Claire hurting Lily."
Ethan's face changed as he understood it too.
"Oh God."
"What?"
"He kept telling her she needed to document Lily's behavioral problems."
I stared at him.
"He encouraged Claire to punish her?"
"I don't know."
"You introduced Paul to her?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Six months ago."
Before the affair.
Before the board coup.
Before the worst of Claire's behavior.
Jonathan spoke quietly.
"Paul may have been manufacturing a chain of events."
Remove Daniel.
Trigger the trust.
Disqualify Claire.
Control Lily's shares.
Raid Bennett Holdings.
And if Claire or Ethan took the blame, Paul remained outside the center.
I thought of the threatening messages.
Ethan is no longer useful.
"Where is Paul?" I asked.
Ethan shook his head.
"I don't know."
Jonathan called Paul's firm.
No answer.
Then he called a partner he knew.
Two minutes later, his expression changed.
"What?"
"Paul resigned yesterday."
My stomach dropped.
"When?"
"Effective immediately."
"Where is he?"
"No one knows."
I looked at Ethan.
"You were flying to London."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Paul told me to."
The stupidity of it was unbelievable.
"He told you to leave the country while your company was investigating you?"
"He said he had evidence in London proving your father diverted clinic money."
"Where were you meeting him?"
"A hotel in Mayfair."
Jonathan shook his head.
"He was getting you out of the country."
"Why?"
Ethan looked toward the floor.
"Maybe to blame everything on me."
His company phone buzzed on the desk.
We all looked.
A message.
From Paul.
Change of plans.
Ethan picked up the phone.
Another message arrived.
You shouldn't have let Daniel reach Reeves.
I grabbed Jonathan's arm.
"Can police trace this?"
"They'll try."
A third message.
Meet me where Caroline is.
Ethan went pale.
I looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
He swallowed.
"My sister is buried in Concord."
New Hampshire.
Not far from Reeves.
Police were notified.
We drove north with state investigators coordinating ahead of us.
The cemetery was empty when we arrived.
No Paul.
No vehicle.
Nothing.
Then Ethan walked toward Caroline's grave.
He stopped.
There was a fresh envelope taped beneath the stone bench.
His name was written on it.
Inside was a flash drive.
And a handwritten note.
YOUR MOTHER TOLD ROBERT EVERYTHING.
Ethan's hands shook.
We connected the drive using a police-controlled laptop.
One video file appeared.
Timestamp: four years earlier.
My father's office.
Robert Bennett sat behind his desk.
Across from him was Margaret Cole.
Ethan's mother.
She was crying.
"I should have stopped Edward."
My father leaned forward.
"Then help me stop Mercer."
I looked at Jonathan.
Paul had been involved four years ago.
Margaret continued.
"He has copies of everything."
"What does he want?"
"Control."
"Of the clinic?"
"Of the money."
My father shook his head.
"The clinic is collapsing."
"Not the clinic."
Margaret looked directly toward the hidden camera.
"The children."
My blood froze.
My father whispered, "What children?"
Margaret answered.
"The ones born from the stolen embryos."
The video ended.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then the police laptop received an incoming file.
Live video.
The screen opened.
Claire was sitting in a chair.
Her hands were bound.
A man stepped into frame.
Paul Mercer.
He smiled directly at the camera.
May you like
"Daniel," he said.
"I think it's finally time we talk."
