Chapter 5 - AMANDA’S FIRST LIE
Amanda asked to speak to me.
Grant advised against meeting privately.
So we met the next afternoon at the police station with lawyers present.
Amanda had changed out of her wedding dress.
Without it, she looked younger.
Smaller.
Almost ordinary.
I hated that some part of me still recognized the woman I had loved.
“Where’s Sophie?” she asked.
“Safe.”
Her eyes filled.
“I never wanted to hurt her.”
“Then why did you say you’d send her away?”
Amanda stared at her hands.
“My exact words were terrible.”
“They were clear.”
“I know.”
“So explain them.”
Her lawyer touched her arm.
Amanda ignored him.
“Marcus wanted her out of the house.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“Because Sophie noticed things.”
“What things?”
“She remembered when people moved objects. She noticed if a drawer had been opened. She noticed the security keypad sounds.”
“That’s why you wanted her gone?”
“I wanted to stop the plan.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That’s your defense?”
“No. Ryan, listen to me.”
She leaned forward.
“Marcus is my half brother.”
I hadn’t expected that.
“He contacted me two years ago.”
“You told me you didn’t have siblings.”
“My father left before I was born. Marcus was his son from another relationship.”
“So?”
“So Marcus found me after our father died.”
“And asked you to commit fraud?”
“Not at first.”
Her voice shook.
“He helped me when I owed money.”
“How much?”
“Forty-two thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
She looked away.
“Credit cards. Personal loans. Stupid things.”
“Then what?”
“He started asking favors.”
I pushed the phone across the table.
“Photographing my financial records?”
Amanda winced.
“Yes.”
“My bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“My daughter?”
“No.”
I froze.
“What?”
“I never photographed Sophie.”
“There are pictures of her school schedule.”
“I know.”
“Then who did?”
Amanda went pale.
“Marcus wasn’t working alone.”
The detective beside me leaned forward.
“Who else?”
Amanda’s lawyer finally spoke.
“My client has already provided a name.”
Grant looked at him.
“What name?”
Amanda’s eyes met mine.
“Daniel Mercer.”
I frowned.
“Who is that?”
“You know him.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, Ryan.”
Her voice dropped.
“You absolutely do.”
I shook my head.
Then she said the name again.
Daniel Mercer.
Something distant stirred in my memory.
Not a person I knew socially.
A name from paperwork.
A name connected to my family.
And suddenly I remembered.
Daniel Mercer had been the financial manager who handled my mother’s accounts before she died.
The man she fired three weeks before her fatal car accident.
Amanda stared at me.
May you like
“He says your mother ruined his life.”
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