Chapter 3 - The Empty Drawer
The archive door stood open.
Ethan had never seen it open without two security officers present.
He carried Leo while Sarah stayed beside him. Victoria followed until Ethan stopped her at the stairs.
"You stay here."
"You can't order me around in my own home."
"It's not your home."
The words landed hard.
Ethan and Sarah descended.
Inside, a single drawer had been pulled from a wall of fireproof cabinets.
The label read:
LEO MERCER - TRUST / GUARDIANSHIP.
Empty.
Ethan swore under his breath.
Sarah looked around.
"Was anything else taken?"
The archive manager, Mr. Hale, arrived pale and breathless.
"Sir, the system says the drawer was opened eight minutes ago."
"By who?"
Hale checked the terminal.
His face tightened.
"Your credential."
Ethan stared at him. "I was upstairs."
"I know."
"Then someone cloned it."
Hale nodded.
Sarah noticed a second cabinet ajar.
"What's in there?"
Hale hesitated.
"Mrs. Caroline Mercer's private papers."
Ethan went still.
His wife had died eighteen months earlier after a sudden infection following surgery.
He had never opened the sealed correspondence she left with the family attorney.
Not because he didn't care.
Because he couldn't.
Hale opened the cabinet.
One envelope was missing.
Ethan looked at the log.
The same cloned credential had accessed it.
"Which envelope?"
Hale read the inventory.
"Letter C-7. Marked: 'For Ethan if anyone challenges Leo's guardianship.'"
Sarah felt a chill.
Ethan looked toward the ceiling.
"Victoria wants the trust."
"Why?" Sarah asked.
"The trust controls thirty-one percent of Mercer Industries until Leo turns twenty-five."
"Who controls it while he's a child?"
"Me."
Hale cleared his throat.
"Not exactly, sir."
Ethan turned.
Hale looked uncomfortable.
"If you marry, the trust allows your legal spouse to petition for temporary co-guardianship under certain conditions."
Ethan's face hardened.
"What conditions?"
"If the child's surviving parent is declared unable to serve."
Sarah remembered Victoria's recorded whisper.
Your father won't choose you forever.
Ethan's phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
It showed Ethan unconscious in a hospital bed.
The timestamp was from three weeks earlier, when he had supposedly been treated for food poisoning.
May you like
Under the photo were six words:
THE FIRST MEDICAL REPORT IS READY.
