Chapter 5 - The Account With Lily’s Name
Federal investigators froze several Mercer-controlled accounts the following morning.
That was when they found something none of us expected.
An account opened thirteen months earlier.
Beneficiary:
Lily Elena Mercer.
Balance:
$48,000,000.
I stared at the screen.
“Why would Mother put money in Lily’s name?”
Rebecca had a theory.
“She didn’t.”
The signatures were forged.
The account appeared designed to make it look as though Elena and I had diverted company funds for our daughter.
If Margaret’s scheme had ever been discovered, she had prepared someone else to blame.
Me.
My supposedly dead wife.
And our baby.
It was elegant.
Cruel.
Almost perfect.
Almost.
Because Margaret had made one mistake.
She had assumed Elena would never escape.
That afternoon, Elena returned to the Mercer house for the first time in two years.
She stopped in the doorway.
I waited.
“This was my home,” she whispered.
“It still can be.”
She looked at me.
“No.”
The answer hurt.
Then she took my hand.
“Our home needs to be somewhere she never controlled.”
I understood.
We walked upstairs together.
Our bedroom looked almost exactly as Elena remembered it.
Because I had never changed it.
Her books remained beside the bed.
Her robe hung behind the bathroom door.
Her perfume bottle sat on the dresser.
Elena touched it.
“You kept everything?”
“I couldn’t let you go.”
She turned.
For the first time since finding her, she kissed me.
Not passionately.
Not dramatically.
Just one quiet kiss.
Then Lily started laughing from the doorway where Rebecca was holding her.
Elena laughed too.
I hadn’t heard that sound in two years.
For one beautiful second, the nightmare disappeared.
Then Rebecca’s phone rang.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She listened.
Then looked at me.
“Margaret wants to make a deal.”
“What kind?”
“She says she’ll tell us where the missing money went.”
“And what does she want?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Elena.”
My wife froze.
“What about me?”
May you like
“Margaret says there’s something about your disappearance you still don’t know.”
---
