Chapter 7 - The Night My Father Died
My father was alive.
That was the first thing I told Emily.
“My dad lives in Florida.”
She blinked.
“Then maybe I misunderstood.”
“What exactly did Diane say?”
Emily closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“She said, ‘Claire still thinks the night her father died was an accident.’”
My heart stopped.
“My father-in-law.”
Thomas Mercer.
Ryan’s dad.
He died four years earlier.
Officially, a heart attack behind the wheel.
His car crossed a median and hit a concrete barrier.
Ryan had been devastated.
Diane had become unbearable afterward.
I had assumed grief explained it.
“What does Thomas have to do with the company?”
Emily shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
I called Rebecca before leaving the bakery.
By that evening, we had requested old corporate records.
Thomas Mercer had founded Mercer Home & Living.
Diane inherited fifty-one percent.
Ryan inherited thirty-nine.
Ten percent had been placed in a trust.
Beneficiary:
Ryan’s spouse.
Me.
I stared at the papers.
“I own ten percent?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Technically, a trust owns it for your benefit.”
“Why?”
“Thomas created it six months before he died.”
“Nobody told me.”
“Apparently.”
I kept reading.
The trust had conditions.
If the company sold more than twenty-five percent of its equity, my written consent was required.
Now everything made sense.
The acquisition.
The urgency.
The forged signatures.
My marriage wasn’t merely useful because of my house.
I was legally standing between Diane and a multimillion-dollar sale.
“They needed me to sign.”
“Yes.”
“And if Ryan divorced me?”
Rebecca tapped the trust provision.
“The shares revert to Thomas’s estate until probate resolves the successor beneficiary.”
“How long would that take?”
“Months. Possibly years.”
“The acquisition would collapse.”
“Probably.”
I sat back.
Ryan’s affair.
His refusal to leave.
His fake promises about fixing our marriage.
Maybe he hadn’t stayed because he loved me.
Maybe he stayed because I was a signature.
“What about Thomas?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
Thomas had amended the trust eight days before his death.
The original version gave the ten percent directly to Ryan.
The amended version took it away from him and gave it to a spousal trust instead.
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
I thought about Emily’s words.
You have no idea what your husband did the night your father died.
Thomas died at 11:42 p.m.
Ryan told me he had been home asleep.
I remembered that night.
I had been visiting Leah.
Ryan called me at midnight.
Crying.
“Dad’s dead.”
“What happened?”
“Car accident.”
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
But suddenly I remembered something.
The next morning, when I came home, Ryan’s SUV had mud caked across the passenger side.
I asked about it.
He said he had driven out to the accident scene after the police called.
I believed him.
Why wouldn’t I?
Now I wasn’t sure I believed anything.
Detective Alvarez agreed to review the old accident report.
Two days later, he called.
“There’s something odd.”
“What?”
“A witness saw a dark SUV near Thomas Mercer’s vehicle shortly before the crash.”
My pulse jumped.
“Ryan drove a black SUV.”
“So did about thirty thousand other people.”
“What else?”
“The witness said the SUV appeared to be following Thomas.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did police investigate?”
“They tried. No plate.”
“What did the crash report say?”
“Thomas suffered a cardiac event.”
“So he had a heart attack.”
“Likely.”
“Then why does this matter?”
“Because of the toxicology report.”
I waited.
“There was a sedative in his bloodstream.”
My mouth went dry.
“Was it prescribed?”
“No.”
The room tilted.
“What kind?”
“A benzodiazepine.”
I knew that word.
Diane had taken anxiety medication for years.
Alvarez continued.
“The concentration wasn’t necessarily fatal. But combined with a heart condition, driving, stress…”
“He could have crashed.”
“Yes.”
I whispered, “Ryan was with him.”
“We don’t know that.”
But we both heard what wasn’t being said.
That afternoon, another email was recovered from the flash drive.
It had been deleted years earlier.
FROM: THOMAS MERCER
TO: RYAN MERCER
Ryan, I know what you and your mother have been doing with company accounts.
We speak tomorrow.
If one more dollar is moved, I go to the board and to the police.
The email was sent at 8:16 p.m.
May you like
Three hours later, Thomas Mercer was dead.
And Ryan had spent four years telling me he was home asleep.
