Chapter 4 - My Father's Last Week
My father, Thomas Mercer, died two years before I met Vanessa.
That fact should have made her message ridiculous.
Instead, Maria looked terrified.
“Tell me,” I said.
She shook her head.
“Mr. Mercer—”
“Tell me.”
Daniel quietly left the room.
Maria stared at the photograph on my phone.
“Your father thought someone was stealing from the company.”
I frowned.
“I knew that.”
Dad had become suspicious during his final months.
Everyone attributed it to medication, exhaustion, and illness.
Including me.
“He said invoices were being changed,” Maria continued. “He asked me whether anyone came to the house when you were traveling.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
She described a night three weeks before Dad's death.
A man arrived after midnight.
Dad met him in the study.
They argued.
Maria heard one name.
Holloway.
Grant Holloway.
I felt as though the floor had shifted beneath me.
“That was years before Vanessa introduced us.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Your father made me promise.”
“Why?”
“He said he needed proof.”
Dad had been dying.
He didn't want me abandoning a critical aerospace merger to chase suspicions he couldn't substantiate.
Then, days before he could show me what he'd discovered, his condition deteriorated.
Doctors said the cancer had accelerated.
He died peacefully at home.
At least that's what I'd believed.
“Did Vanessa know my father?”
“I don't know.”
Nathan did.
I called him.
This time I told him Grant's name appeared in security footage from my father's final weeks.
Nathan went silent.
“I'll dig backward.”
“Tonight.”
“Elijah—”
“Tonight.”
Three hours later he called.
Grant Holloway had worked for a consulting company contracted by Mercer Aerospace five years earlier.
He'd had access to vendor audits.
One of those vendors later became connected to the shell companies Nathan was investigating.
Then came the second connection.
Vanessa had worked at the same consulting company.
Not under her current surname.
Vanessa Cole had once been Vanessa Holloway.
Grant wasn't her cousin.
He was her former husband.
I sat in my father's chair while Nathan explained.
Married seven years.
Divorced four years ago.
At least legally.
Financial records suggested they still shared assets.
Every memory of the past eighteen months rearranged itself.
The accidental meeting at a charity gala.
Grant appearing as a cousin.
Vanessa's curiosity about Mercer Aerospace.
Her fascination with my father's legacy.
Nothing looked accidental anymore.
Then Daniel entered carrying a small box.
“We found this behind the lower drawer of your father's desk.”
Inside was an old flash drive.
A handwritten label read:
E.M. — IF I DON'T FINISH THIS.
My initials.
I plugged it into an isolated laptop.
There were spreadsheets.
Invoices.
Photographs.
Emails.
And one video recorded by my father.
Dad appeared thinner than I remembered.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Elijah, if you're seeing this, I either finally found the courage to tell you, or I ran out of time.”
My throat tightened.
He explained the fraudulent vendor network.
Grant Holloway.
Millions siphoned through inflated contracts.
Dad believed someone inside Mercer Aerospace had helped him.
Then he said a woman's name.
“Vanessa Holloway.”
I gripped the desk.
“I haven't met her,” Dad continued, “but her name appears in three corporate registrations.”
He warned me not to trust coincidences.
The video ended with words I hadn't heard in years.
“Remember what your mother taught you. Money tells you what people want. How they treat someone who can't help them tells you who they are.”
The screen went dark.
I thought about Maria tied to the column.
Dad had given me the answer before I'd even met Vanessa.
I'd simply forgotten the lesson.
Then Daniel's phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He turned toward me.
“Vanessa made bail.”
“How?”
“Attorney arrived immediately.”
“Grant?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Charles Voss.”
I knew the name.
Everyone at Mercer Aerospace did.
Charles Voss was our chief financial officer.
May you like
My father's closest business partner.
And the man scheduled to stand beside me as best man at my wedding.
