Chapter 5 - MY MOTHER-IN-LAW'S SAFE
Police reached Patricia’s house before she returned.
Vanessa was still inside.
So were the documents.
That mattered.
If she had removed them herself, Patricia’s attorney could have attacked the chain of custody.
Instead, officers secured the property and obtained an emergency warrant based on the evidence already collected.
The safe contained twenty-three folders.
Mine was one.
My father’s was another.
Thomas had the thickest.
There were also files belonging to former Mercer Tool & Die employees.
Dormant account holders.
Dead employees.
Widows.
Children.
People Patricia had tracked for decades.
“This wasn’t random,” Monica said.
“No.”
“She knew exactly whose money she was touching.”
My father’s profit-sharing trust should have transferred to me when I turned twenty-five.
It never did.
Patricia had submitted false beneficiary paperwork claiming Michael Grant had no surviving child.
I stared at the forged form.
My name had been erased from my own inheritance.
“How much is left?”
Monica was still calculating.
The original $74,000 had grown before Patricia began withdrawing.
She diverted portions over years.
Some funded Thomas’s care.
Some paid Vanessa.
Some went into Mercer Family Services.
Some disappeared into another entity.
PJM Holdings.
“What’s PJM?”
Daniel stared at the letters.
Then went pale.
“Patricia Jean Mercer.”
His mother.
Monica traced PJM Holdings to three rental properties.
All owned outright.
Current combined value:
$1.4 million.
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
“Vanessa was panicking about her mortgage while Patricia owned three houses?”
“Apparently.”
Daniel looked sick.
“She told us she had no money.”
“She had everybody else’s.”
That afternoon, Patricia was located at a hotel near Dayton.
She was not arrested for murder.
Not yet.
But she was detained for questioning regarding financial fraud and forgery.
Her attorney arrived before we did.
Patricia said almost nothing.
Then she asked to speak to me.
Monica advised against it.
I wanted to hear her.
We met through a conference room with attorneys present.
Patricia wore a navy sweater and pearl earrings.
She looked exactly like the woman who had brought casseroles when I had the flu.
That disturbed me more than if she looked monstrous.
“You look tired,” she said.
I almost smiled.
“You look comfortable.”
“I haven’t slept.”
“Neither did I after your son announced our divorce.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Daniel handled that badly.”
“You told him to.”
“I advised him.”
“Because I was pregnant.”
“Because children complicate separation.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“Because children make people examine money.”
She said nothing.
“You saw my fertility records.”
“I saw an appointment reminder.”
“You had an entire file.”
Patricia looked toward her lawyer.
He remained silent.
“Why did you steal my father’s trust?”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“Then what word would you use?”
“Reallocation.”
I laughed.
There it was.
A respectable word for theft.
“Did my father authorize it?”
“No.”
“Did I?”
“You didn’t know it existed.”
“Because you forged documents.”
Her expression hardened.
“Your father abandoned that money for years.”
“It was legally his.”
“Michael owed us.”
“For what?”
Patricia’s eyes changed.
Finally.
Something personal.
“He destroyed my family.”
“How?”
“He found Steven.”
“Your brother survived because you hid him.”
“Steven was a parasite.”
“Still your brother.”
“He blackmailed me.”
“After you pushed him down stairs and stole money.”
Patricia’s attorney interrupted.
“My client is not admitting—”
Patricia raised a hand.
She wanted to talk.
Good.
“Michael convinced Steven he could come home and play victim.”
“My father convinced him to tell the truth.”
“Your father liked truth when it belonged to other people.”
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
“Michael was sleeping with me.”
The room went silent.
Daniel stopped breathing.
I felt as though Patricia had thrown cold water across the table.
“What?”
She smiled faintly.
“Your father and I had an affair.”
I did not believe her.
Then I remembered.
My father worked at Mercer Tool & Die.
Patricia knew him.
The files.
The anger.
“Before I was born?”
“Before and after.”
My stomach turned.
“My mother?”
“Knew eventually.”
“No.”
“She left him for six months when you were eleven.”
I remembered my mother staying with my aunt one summer.
They told me she was helping after surgery.
Could Patricia be telling the truth?
Daniel looked horrified.
“Mom.”
“Don’t act shocked.”
“You knew Rachel’s father?”
“Very well.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Eventually.”
Thomas.
Another reason for his breakdown?
Patricia continued.
“Michael believed he was better than all of us.”
“So you killed him?”
Her lawyer immediately objected.
Patricia smiled.
“No.”
“You bought medication the day before he died.”
“For Thomas.”
“Thomas was institutionalized.”
“He had heart problems.”
“Willow Crest records every prescription.”
Monica slid a document forward.
“That medication never entered Willow Crest.”
Patricia’s smile disappeared.
There.
A crack.
“Where did it go?”
I asked.
She looked at me.
“Michael took it.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to scare me.”
“That makes no sense.”
“He was unstable.”
“No. That’s what you said about Thomas.”
The pattern became obvious.
Any man who threatened Patricia became unstable.
Dangerous.
Unreliable.
Dead.
Gone.
“Did you go to Dad’s house that night?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To talk.”
“About Steven?”
“Yes.”
“About the stolen accounts?”
“Yes.”
“Did you give him the pills?”
“No.”
“Did you put them in his medication bottle?”
“No.”
“Did you watch him die?”
Her face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
Daniel saw it too.
“Mom?”
Patricia looked at her son.
“Your father destroyed everything.”
“Which father?”
The question came from Vanessa.
She had entered with Detective Reid’s equivalent in this case, Detective Sarah Mitchell.
Patricia’s face went white.
Vanessa stood beside the door.
“What did you say?”
Daniel asked.
Vanessa stared at her mother.
“What did she mean by which father?”
I looked between them.
Another secret.
Of course.
Vanessa held one document recovered from the safe.
A birth certificate amendment.
Daniel’s name.
Patricia’s name.
Father:
Thomas Mercer.
Then another document.
A private paternity test from 1998.
Probability Thomas Mercer was Daniel’s biological father:
0.00%.
Daniel sat down.
“No.”
Patricia closed her eyes.
“Mom?”
No answer.
Daniel looked at me.
Then Vanessa.
“Who is my father?”
Vanessa was crying.
“I think…”
She looked at me.
My stomach dropped before she finished.
“No.”
Daniel stared.
Vanessa placed another laboratory report on the table.
It compared Daniel’s DNA to a stored sample belonging to Michael Grant.
My father.
Probability of biological fatherhood:
99.8%.
Nobody moved.
I felt the room disappear.
Daniel looked at me.
Horror.
Disbelief.
I stood so fast my chair fell backward.
“No.”
Patricia whispered my name.
“Rachel.”
I backed away.
Daniel was my husband.
My father was Michael Grant.
The report said Michael was Daniel’s father too.
Which meant—
“No.”
My hand flew to my stomach.
Monica understood instantly.
So did Detective Mitchell.
“Rachel, sit down.”
I couldn’t.
The baby.
My baby.
Daniel’s baby.
If the report was real, Daniel and I shared a biological father.
We were half-siblings.
Patricia had known.
She had known before our wedding.
Before seven years of financial support.
Before fertility treatments.
Before I became pregnant.
I looked at her.
“You knew.”
She began crying.
For the first time, Patricia Mercer looked afraid.
“You knew Daniel and I were related.”
“I wasn’t certain.”
“There is a DNA test!”
“I got it after you were married.”
“When?”
She didn’t answer.
“When?”
Daniel shouted.
Patricia flinched.
“Six years ago.”
My stomach twisted.
Six years.
She had known for six years that her son had married his biological half-sister.
And said nothing.
“Why?”
I whispered.
Patricia’s face crumpled.
“Because if Daniel learned Michael was his father, he would start asking questions.”
“About what?”
“The money.”
“That’s why?”
My voice rose.
“You let us live as husband and wife because you were protecting stolen money?”
“I thought you would never have children.”
The sentence destroyed whatever composure I had left.
“You knew we were trying.”
“I hoped it wouldn’t happen.”
Daniel stood.
“You told me Rachel was selfish for waiting.”
“I was trying to discourage you.”
“You asked us when we were giving you grandchildren!”
“I had to act normal.”
I felt physically sick.
Detective Mitchell stepped toward me.
“We need to confirm this independently.”
Yes.
The report could be false.
Patricia forged documents.
Nothing she kept could be trusted.
Daniel looked at me.
“Rachel.”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
I held my stomach.
The child I had wanted for years suddenly existed inside a nightmare created before I was born.
Monica took my arm.
“We’re going to your doctor.”
Behind us, Patricia began crying.
“Rachel, I’m sorry.”
I turned.
“No.”
She stopped.
“You don’t get to use that word yet.”
We left.
Independent DNA testing began that afternoon.
Daniel submitted a sample.
So did I.
My father’s stored biological sample was available from an old medical pathology archive.
The results would take days.
Those days were unbearable.
Then Detective Mitchell called.
They had found something else in Patricia’s safe.
A letter from my father.
Addressed to me.
Never delivered.
Dated the night he died.
May you like
The first line read:
Rachel, if you ever fall in love with Daniel Mercer, Patricia must tell you the truth before it is too late.
