Chapter 4 - VANESSA WAS NEVER JUST MY MISTRESS
I drove back to Beverly Hills.
Not because Vanessa asked.
Because police were already on the way.
Patricia had contacted financial-crimes investigators.
The hotel manager met us at the suite.
Vanessa was gone.
No luggage.
No champagne bottles.
No silk sheets.
Cleaned.
Too clean.
Only one thing remained.
A black portfolio under the desk.
Inside:
Harbor documents.
Trust amendments.
A copy of Emily’s driver’s license.
Samples of her signature.
And photographs.
Emily at the grocery store.
Emily leaving her obstetrician.
Emily meeting Patricia outside a law office.
Someone had been following my pregnant wife.
My knees nearly gave out.
Detective Allison Park looked at me.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Your name appears on several payments to the investigator.”
“I didn’t authorize them.”
She gave me a look I deserved.
“You also say you didn’t authorize the Harbor loans.”
“I didn’t.”
“And you were sleeping with the woman holding your wife’s surveillance file.”
“Yes.”
Facts sounded monstrous when strangers repeated them.
Then Park found another envelope.
My name.
Inside was a handwritten note.
You always choose what is in front of you.
That’s why this was easy.
Vanessa.
She had known exactly who I was.
Weak to attention.
Dependent on admiration.
Easy to distract.
The affair had been real.
But maybe it had also been useful.
Miles arrived.
Police questioned him separately.
He emerged forty minutes later looking furious.
“You told your father I knew?”
“No.”
“He said my name.”
“Yes.”
Miles swore.
He had discovered the fraud only six weeks earlier.
He contacted Emily last night because he saw her digital signature appear on a Harbor amendment at 11:52 p.m.
She could not have signed it.
Her location was at home.
The document had been generated from Vanessa’s laptop.
“What about you knowing the trust?” I asked.
“I learned two days ago.”
“Why not tell me?”
Miles laughed bitterly.
“Because your father owns three board seats and you were sleeping with the registered agent.”
Fair.
Then police traced Vanessa’s car.
Abandoned near Burbank Airport.
No record of boarding.
But her passport had been scanned for a private charter.
Destination:
Vancouver.
Passenger manifest included one other person.
Richard Mercer.
My father.
I stared.
“They left together?”
Detective Park nodded.
The flight departed at 7:05 a.m.
Eighteen minutes after I woke in Vanessa’s hotel suite.
My father had known exactly where she was.
Probably because he arranged everything.
Then Patricia called.
“Jake.”
Her use of my first name frightened me.
“Is Emily okay?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She found another account.”
My throat tightened.
“What account?”
“One holding six million dollars.”
“Whose?”
“Harper’s.”
My unborn daughter.
“She isn’t even born.”
“That’s the point.”
Someone had already created a trust under Harper Mercer’s name.
And the trustee listed was not Emily.
Not me.
May you like
My father.
Richard had been preparing to control my daughter’s assets before she was born.
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