Chapter 4 - THE LETTER FROM A DEAD MAN
The police found Eli four hours later.
He was sitting inside the lobby of a closed hotel six miles from Lauren’s car.
Unhurt.
Confused.
Terrified.
He told officers a man had said Daniel sent him.
The man had worn a baseball cap and sunglasses.
He had given Eli juice, driven him across town, and told him to wait inside the hotel.
It wasn’t a kidnapping for ransom.
It was a message.
Lauren refused to let Daniel near Eli when we arrived.
She stood between them in the police station.
“This is your family.”
Daniel looked crushed.
“Lauren—”
“No. Every time the Mercers come near us, something happens.”
I watched her closely.
She wasn’t performing.
She was afraid.
Then her eyes found mine.
“You’re Emma.”
“Yes.”
She looked almost apologetic.
“I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Lauren looked at him, then back at me.
“For not making him tell you.”
That answer hurt differently.
Not because she had lied to me.
Because she had known I existed.
We sat in an interview room while officers questioned Eli.
The envelope was in police custody, but because my name was written on it and there was no immediate evidentiary reason to withhold it after photographing it, they eventually allowed me to see the contents.
Richard Mercer’s handwriting covered three pages.
The first line changed everything.
Emma,
If Daniel gives you this voluntarily, then perhaps I was wrong about him.
If you are receiving it because something has gone wrong, then I was right to be afraid.
I looked at Daniel.
He was staring at the paper.
“You’ve never seen this?”
“No.”
I continued.
Richard wrote that several years before his death, he had discovered irregularities inside Mercer Development.
Money was disappearing through consulting contracts, inflated maintenance invoices, and property acquisitions involving shell companies.
At first, he blamed employees.
Then he found signatures.
Vivian’s.
The letter did not accuse her of stealing outright.
It said something more complicated.
She had been directing money into investment vehicles Richard had not approved.
Some produced returns.
Others disappeared.
One was connected to a man named Graham Harlan.
Harlan Capital.
My pulse quickened.
Richard wrote that by the time he understood the scale, Vivian had already pledged private assets and used company guarantees to cover losses.
When he confronted her, she told him she was protecting the family from his “cowardly management.”
Richard threatened divorce.
Then Lauren became pregnant.
I stopped.
Daniel’s face tightened.
The letter continued.
Richard believed Vivian used Lauren’s pregnancy to control Daniel and to protect the family reputation while financial negotiations were underway.
The settlement money did not come from Richard.
It came from an account controlled by Vivian.
Daniel stared at the page.
“She told me Dad paid her.”
Lauren whispered, “That’s what I was told too.”
Richard claimed he tried to undo the damage privately.
But there was another sentence.
One that made Rachel sit forward.
I am not certain Eli is Daniel’s son.
Daniel went rigid.
Lauren stood.
“What?”
I read it again.
Richard wrote that shortly before his death, he learned Lauren had been seeing another Mercer.
Not Daniel.
Someone older.
Someone Richard refused to name in the letter because he did not yet have proof.
Lauren shook her head violently.
“No.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Lauren?”
“It’s not what you think.”
His face broke.
“Oh God.”
She backed away.
“Daniel, listen.”
“Who?”
She covered her mouth.
“Who?”
“Your father.”
The room went silent.
Daniel looked as if someone had struck him.
Lauren began crying.
“It happened before you and I were serious. Once. I was twenty-eight. He was angry with Vivian. I was working events for the company.”
Daniel stared at her.
“My father slept with you?”
“One night.”
“And then you got pregnant.”
“I didn’t know.”
My stomach twisted.
Richard’s letter ended with a warning.
He had requested a private DNA comparison.
The result had never reached him.
The lab claimed the sample was lost.
Richard believed someone intercepted it.
He also wrote that Thomas Vale knew everything.
The letter had been placed in Vale’s custody with instructions to deliver it to me if any unauthorized borrowing occurred after Richard’s death.
Yet Thomas had vanished.
Which meant the envelope should never have been in the hands of whoever took Eli.
Unless Thomas had given it to someone.
Or someone had taken it from him.
Daniel stood motionless.
“Eli could be my brother.”
Lauren whispered, “Or your son.”
His face twisted.
“And you never thought I deserved to know?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Your mother.”
There it was again.
Vivian.
Always somewhere behind the fear.
Lauren pulled out her phone.
“Your mother came to me after Richard died.”
Daniel looked up.
“What?”
“She told me if I ever requested a paternity test, she would destroy me. She said she had documents proving I blackmailed Richard.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then why were you afraid?”
Lauren looked ashamed.
“Because I signed things I didn’t read when I took the settlement.”
Rachel spoke.
“What things?”
“I don’t know.”
“That matters.”
“I know.”
“Do you still have copies?”
“No.”
Rachel’s expression hardened.
“Vivian does.”
The next morning, I returned to the Mercer mansion with Rachel and Daniel.
Vivian was in the drawing room speaking with a real-estate broker.
She stopped when she saw us.
“What are you doing here?”
I placed Richard’s letter on the table.
The color drained from her face.
For the first time since I had known her, Vivian Mercer had no immediate answer.
Daniel stepped forward.
“Was Eli Dad’s son?”
Vivian’s lips tightened.
“Lauren has always been trash.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“She slept with both of you.”
Daniel flinched.
I watched Vivian.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Knowledge.
“You knew,” I said.
She turned toward me.
“You have no idea what you are discussing.”
“You knew Richard might be Eli’s father.”
Vivian’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
Daniel saw it.
His voice broke.
“You knew.”
Vivian reached for her wine.
Daniel slapped the glass away.
It shattered.
“ANSWER ME.”
She stared at him.
Then said quietly, “Your father was going to destroy this family.”
That was not a denial.
Before Daniel could speak again, the front door opened.
Amanda Pierce, Vivian’s assistant, rushed inside.
She looked pale.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
Vivian snapped, “Not now.”
Amanda looked at me.
Then at Rachel.
“I think you need to see something.”
She held out a flash drive.
“I copied it before they erased the server.”
“Copied what?” I asked.
Amanda swallowed.
“The security footage from the night Richard died.”
Vivian went completely still.
Richard Mercer’s death had been ruled a heart attack.
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So why was Vivian terrified of security footage?
And what had happened inside this house on the final night he was alive?
