Chapter 5 - VANESSA'S FATHER
Vanessa stopped cooperating the moment police mentioned the suitcase.
Until then, according to Detective Hale, she had tried to portray herself as Grant's innocent girlfriend.
She claimed he told her our marriage was over.
Claimed she believed I had moved out.
Claimed the pearls were a gift and she had no idea they belonged to my grandmother.
But when Hale placed a photograph of Samuel Cole's suitcase on the interrogation table, Vanessa asked for a lawyer.
That was all I knew.
And somehow, it was enough.
I recovered at my father's estate.
I hadn't slept there since I married Grant.
The house looked exactly as I remembered—stone walls, enormous windows, old oak trees lining the drive—but it felt smaller.
Maybe because I was no longer the twenty-eight-year-old woman determined to prove she could build a life without the Vance name.
Dad turned the downstairs library into a temporary bedroom so I wouldn't have to climb stairs.
He had nurses available around the clock.
I refused.
One stayed anyway.
I pretended not to notice.
Three days after the assault, Detective Hale arrived with two federal investigators.
That frightened me.
"This isn't just domestic violence anymore, is it?"
Hale sat across from me.
"No."
Dad stood near the fireplace.
One investigator introduced herself as Special Agent Rebecca Torres.
The second was Agent Daniel Kim.
Torres placed a thin folder on the coffee table.
"Mrs. Mercer, we're investigating potential financial crimes involving your husband."
"Potential?"
"At this stage."
"What kind?"
"Fraud. Money laundering. Conspiracy."
My eyes moved toward Dad.
He looked equally surprised.
Torres continued.
"Your husband controls several development companies. Over the last four years, those companies received approximately thirty-one million dollars from overseas entities."
I stared.
"Grant isn't that successful."
"No," Dad said quietly.
Torres looked at him.
"Apparently not."
She opened the folder.
"Most of the companies sending those funds exist only on paper."
"Why?"
"That's what we're determining."
Agent Kim added, "Several payments passed through contractors linked to properties near former Vance Maritime facilities."
Harbor Nine.
I already knew.
"Vanessa's father."
Hale nodded.
Torres looked at me.
"You know about Samuel Cole?"
"Only what they told me."
"Samuel worked as a senior accountant for Vance Maritime thirteen years ago."
Dad spoke.
"He was good."
"You trusted him?"
"Completely."
"What happened?"
Dad looked out the window.
"Money disappeared."
"How much?"
"At the time, eighteen million."
My mouth fell open.
"I thought you were the victim."
"I was."
"But Samuel stole it?"
"We thought so."
Hale corrected him.
"We never established that."
Dad nodded.
"Samuel disappeared before he could explain."
"What did Vanessa believe?"
Torres answered.
"She believed Arthur had her father killed."
Dad showed no reaction.
I did.
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it?" Torres asked.
I looked at her sharply.
She held my gaze.
"We're investigators, Mrs. Mercer. We don't operate on reputation. We operate on evidence."
My father nodded.
"Good."
Torres continued.
"Samuel Cole contacted federal investigators forty-eight hours before he vanished."
Everyone went still.
Dad turned.
"You never told me that."
"It was sealed."
"What did he say?"
"He claimed someone inside Vance Maritime was using company infrastructure to move illegal funds."
Dad frowned.
"Who?"
"He planned to provide the name at a second meeting."
"But he disappeared."
"Yes."
My stomach tightened.
"So Vanessa grew up thinking my father killed him."
"That appears likely."
"And she targeted me?"
"We don't know."
But I did.
I remembered meeting Vanessa for the first time at a charity gala two years earlier.
She had approached me near the auction tables.
Warm.
Funny.
Charming.
We became friendly.
Six months later, I introduced her to Grant.
The affair probably began shortly after that.
Had she befriended me intentionally?
The thought made me sick.
Agent Kim slid a photograph across the table.
Vanessa at seventeen.
Standing beside Samuel Cole.
She looked younger, softer.
Her father had one arm around her.
"She was seventeen when he disappeared," Kim said.
Torres placed another document down.
A letter.
"We found this inside the suitcase."
It was addressed to Vanessa.
The handwriting shook.
My dear Vanessa,
If you're reading this, something has happened to me.
I stopped.
"Can I read it?"
Torres nodded.
The letter was short.
Samuel told his daughter not to trust the story people would tell.
He said Arthur Vance did not know what had been happening.
He said the theft was being orchestrated by someone else.
Someone Samuel had trusted.
At the bottom were five words.
Look at the Mercer accounts.
My blood froze.
"Mercer?"
Dad stepped closer.
Grant's surname.
But twelve years ago, Grant would have been twenty-seven.
His father, Richard Mercer, was alive then.
A respected developer.
A donor.
A man Dad had known socially for decades.
I looked at my father.
"Richard?"
His face had gone pale.
"I need to see that."
Torres handed him the copy.
Dad read it twice.
"I invested in one of Richard's projects."
"When?" Hale asked.
"Fourteen years ago."
"What project?"
"Harbor redevelopment."
Hale cursed under his breath.
Dad continued.
"Richard had access to shipping schedules because his construction crews were working near the terminal."
Agent Torres nodded slowly.
"We've been reconstructing the old transactions."
"And?" I asked.
"Some stolen funds were routed through companies later absorbed by Mercer Development."
The room seemed to shrink.
I remembered Richard Mercer.
Grant's father.
He died four years before our wedding.
Grant always spoke about him like a saint.
Hardworking.
Brilliant.
Self-made.
What if the Mercer fortune had been built with stolen money?
"What does Grant know?" I whispered.
Torres closed the file.
"Maybe everything."
My phone vibrated.
I had received hundreds of messages since the arrest.
Friends.
Reporters.
People I barely knew.
I ignored most.
But this message came from an unknown number.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
I opened it.
My stomach dropped.
It showed me leaving my obstetrician's office two weeks earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Another photo followed.
Me entering a pharmacy.
Then another.
Me sitting alone in my car.
My father saw my face.
"What?"
I handed him the phone.
His expression became terrifying.
Then the final message arrived.
Grant knew about the baby before you did.
I stopped breathing.
"That's impossible."
Agent Torres took the phone.
"Don't delete anything."
Another message.
Ask him why he increased your life insurance policy the next morning.
My hand flew to my mouth.
Dad stared at Hale.
"When was the policy increased?"
Hale was already calling someone.
I remembered the paperwork.
Grant brought it to breakfast.
Routine financial planning, he said.
I signed where he pointed.
I had trusted my husband.
Twenty minutes later, Hale received confirmation.
My life insurance coverage had increased from two million dollars to ten million.
The beneficiary?
Grant Mercer.
Date of amendment?
One day after my obstetrician appointment.
He had known.
Maybe he saw the appointment on our credit card.
Maybe he followed me.
Maybe someone else did.
Either way, he knew I was pregnant when he beat me.
The realization hurt in a way broken ribs couldn't touch.
He had known there was a baby.
And he hit me anyway.
Agent Kim's phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, his face was grim.
"Local police searched another structure on the cabin property."
"What structure?" Dad asked.
"A locked maintenance shed."
My body tightened.
"They found chemicals, cleaning supplies, rope, tarps—"
Dad's jaw clenched.
Torres lifted one hand.
"Those materials have legitimate uses. We are not jumping to conclusions."
Kim continued.
"But they also found printed maps."
"Maps of what?"
"Lake Everett."
He looked at me.
"One route was marked from the cabin to a section of shoreline where the water reaches more than a hundred feet deep."
I couldn't speak.
Then Kim added quietly:
"And beside the map was a handwritten note."
Dad's voice was low.
"What did it say?"
Agent Kim looked directly at me.
May you like
ACCIDENT. NO BODY, NO TRUST INVESTIGATION.
And this time, Grant's handwriting was unmistakable.
