Chapter 6 - What My Father Buried
Keane survived.
The bullet had passed through the top of his shoulder, and the car had broken two ribs. At the hospital, he refused pain medication until he finished telling me what he knew.
My father, Charles Mercer, had built our family fortune from a small construction company into a real-estate empire worth hundreds of millions. In public, he was disciplined, generous, almost old-fashioned. At home, he believed control was the same thing as love.
Rebecca had learned that before I did.
“Your wife found irregular transfers from the Mercer Family Trust,” Keane said. “Millions moved through shell companies. She believed Charles was using Noah’s future trust to cover losses in other businesses.”
I stared at him. “My father was stealing from his grandson?”
“Borrowing, he called it.”
Grace stood near the window, arms folded tightly.
Keane continued. “Rebecca threatened to report him. The night she died, she called Eric because she thought he might help her.”
“Why Eric?”
“Because Eric already hated your father.”
That was true. Eric had spent most of his life fighting Dad, then crawling back whenever he ran out of money.
Keane pointed toward the recorder. “There’s a copy of my original interview with Eric. Listen to it somewhere safe.”
Back at the estate, we gathered in Rebecca’s locked room. Grace pressed play.
Eric’s younger voice filled the room.
I went to Rebecca’s car because she called me. She said Dad had threatened her. I checked under the hood because she thought someone had messed with it. I touched the wrench. I didn’t cut anything.
Keane asked, Then who did?
Eric answered, I don’t know. But Dad showed up ten minutes later.
The recording ended.
Grace looked at me. “Your father was at the car?”
I could barely hear her.
A memory came back. At Rebecca’s funeral, Dad had held me by the shoulders and said, Some truths only destroy the living. Let this be an accident.
At the time, I thought he was talking about grief.
A knock sounded at the bedroom door.
Mrs. Alvarez entered, carrying a padded envelope.
“This was just delivered for you.”
No return address.
May you like
Inside was a photograph of Noah walking beside Grace in the garden that morning.
Across his face, someone had drawn a red X.
