I Found My Housekeeper Eating Cold Rice at 2 A.M.—Then I Learned Someone Was Stealing Half Her Pay

The firm was called Mercer Risk Solutions.

Five years earlier, a Mercer investigator named Dale Mercer had interviewed June for twenty minutes after Caleb's death. He told her the accident was tragic, simple, and nobody's fault.

Now he was being paid from Victor's hidden account.

Rachel found his current address outside Naperville.

Police advised us not to approach him.

I listened for nearly ten minutes.

Then I drove there anyway, with Rachel beside me and two detectives following at a distance.

Dale Mercer opened the door wearing sweatpants and suspicion.

When he saw June in the passenger seat, he tried to close it.

I blocked the door with my foot.

"Caleb Carter."

His face changed.

"I don't know that name."

June stepped out. "You sat in my kitchen after my husband died. You drank my coffee."

Mercer looked toward the street.

"You need to leave."

Rachel held up her phone. "Police are fifty yards away. Talk now or talk downtown."

He sagged.

Inside, he admitted Victor hired him to shape the accident narrative. Mercer did not cut the rail. He arrived afterward, removed Caleb's notebook from the locker, and pressured a mechanic into changing his statement.

"Who cut it?" June asked.

"I don't know."

"Who ordered it?"

Mercer looked at me.

"Stephen Cross."

June closed her eyes.

Mercer said Caleb was not supposed to die. The plan was to scare him with a staged equipment failure. But Caleb fell from the platform when the damaged rail gave way.

"And Evelyn?" I asked.

Mercer's silence answered first.

"She found me," he said. "Asked questions. She had copies. Victor panicked."

My hands tightened.

"Did he kill my wife?"

"I didn't say that."

"Did he?"

Mercer stood suddenly.

A red dot appeared on his chest.

Rachel shouted, "Down!"

The window exploded.

Mercer dropped.