Chapter 4 - What Eleanor Was Hiding
Charles found Rebecca the next morning before her shift.
He did not ask permission.
He waited across the street from the restaurant until she arrived.
When Rebecca saw him beside the black sedan, she stopped walking.
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m working.”
“So was I when my daughter changed my life yesterday.”
Rebecca looked around.
“Charles.”
“Thomas was there the night Eleanor overdosed.”
Rebecca’s expression shifted.
That was all he needed.
“You suspected him.”
“I suspected several people.”
“But he was one.”
“Yes.”
Charles opened the car door.
“Get in.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I’m not getting into your car.”
“Then we stand here.”
People passed them.
Rebecca sighed.
Five minutes later, they were sitting in a quiet coffee shop two blocks away.
Charles placed photocopies of the security logs on the table.
“Forty-two visits.”
Rebecca read them.
Her face tightened.
“He had access.”
“He was family.”
“That’s exactly why Eleanor was frightened.”
Charles looked at her.
“Tell me everything from the beginning.”
Rebecca stared into her coffee.
Then she spoke.
“Eleanor contacted me through a private nursing service. She asked whether I could take a cash arrangement outside normal hours.”
“Cash?”
“She didn’t want insurance records.”
Charles laughed bitterly.
“She hid it well.”
“She was terrified you’d find out before she understood what was happening.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That her medications felt wrong.”
Rebecca rubbed her thumb along the cup.
“The first night I met her, she apologized six times.”
“For what?”
“For sounding paranoid.”
Charles could hear Eleanor saying it.
He hated that.
“She told me she would take a medication she had used for months without problems, then suddenly feel sedated or confused.”
“What did you do?”
“I cataloged everything.”
Rebecca had photographed pills, bottle labels, lot numbers, pharmacy receipts.
She checked medication organizers.
She asked Eleanor to record exactly when she took each dose.
For ten days, nothing happened.
Then one bottle changed.
“Changed how?”
“The label was identical. The tablets weren’t.”
Charles leaned forward.
“Were they counterfeit?”
“No. Real medication. Different dosage.”
“How different?”
“Enough to matter.”
Charles felt his jaw tighten.
“Someone replaced them.”
“That’s what we suspected.”
“Why didn’t she move out?”
Rebecca looked at him with disbelief.
“Where would she go?”
“Anywhere.”
“She was sick. Sophie was two. You were traveling constantly. Eleanor was trying to keep her life from falling apart.”
Charles looked away.
There it was again.
You were traveling.
He had been.
Singapore.
Chicago.
London.
San Francisco.
He could map the final year of his wife’s life by hotel rooms.
Rebecca continued.
“Then Eleanor found something else.”
“What?”
“A financial document.”
Charles looked back.
“What kind?”
“Trust paperwork.”
“What trust?”
“Sophie’s.”
Charles’s stomach tightened.
Sophie had inherited a substantial trust from Charles’s father. Charles himself had added to it after she was born.
“Why was Eleanor looking at it?”
“She received a notice about a proposed administrative change.”
“What change?”
“I never saw the full document.”
“Who was proposing it?”
“Thomas.”
Charles went very still.
Thomas had managed several Mercer family entities.
He was not technically a trustee of Sophie’s main trust, but he advised the family office.
“Did Eleanor confront him?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“She wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened.”
Rebecca reached into her bag and removed a photograph.
It showed Eleanor sitting near the bedroom window.
Thin.
Pale.
Beautiful even while sick.
Charles’s breath caught.
He had not seen this photo.
Beside Eleanor sat Rebecca.
On the table between them were medication bottles and a yellow legal pad.
“When was this?”
“Six weeks before she died.”
Charles stared.
Eleanor was looking at the camera with a small smile.
Not happy.
Determined.
“She asked me to document everything,” Rebecca said.
“Why take a photograph?”
“Because she wanted proof I had been there.”
“For whom?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“For you.”
Charles swallowed.
“Then why didn’t she show me?”
“She kept thinking she had more time.”
The sentence sat between them.
Charles looked down.
Rebecca’s voice softened.
“She loved you.”
He almost snapped at her.
Instead he said, “She didn’t trust me.”
“She trusted you completely.”
“That’s not what this looks like.”
“She didn’t trust what you would do if you knew.”
Charles gave a humorless smile.
“Better.”
“You had spent your whole life fixing problems with force.”
“I don’t use force.”
“You use money, lawyers, influence, speed. Same instinct.”
Charles leaned back.
“She wanted evidence.”
“Yes.”
“She wanted to know exactly what Thomas was doing.”
“Yes.”
“And whether it involved Sophie’s trust.”
Rebecca nodded.
Charles looked at the photo again.
“What happened after the night she became unconscious?”
“Eleanor changed.”
“How?”
“She became certain.”
“Certain it was Thomas?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Certain somebody was deliberately interfering.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
Charles stared at her.
Rebecca exhaled.
“Yes. She suspected Thomas most strongly.”
Charles closed his eyes.
The world felt wrong.
Thomas had grown up with him.
They had spent summers at the Mercer family home in Maine.
Thomas had helped Charles bury his father.
Thomas had been the first person to hold Sophie after Charles and Eleanor.
“What motive?”
“Money.”
Charles opened his eyes.
“That simple?”
“Money is rarely simple.”
“What did Eleanor discover?”
“That Thomas had been moving funds between family entities.”
Charles frowned.
“He had authority.”
“Some transfers were legitimate.”
“And the others?”
“Eleanor thought he was covering losses.”
Charles stared.
“What losses?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rebecca.”
“I’m telling you what she told me.”
Charles pushed back from the table.
“What else did she prepare?”
Rebecca looked at him sharply.
He had caught it.
A flicker.
“What?”
“You said she documented things.”
“She did.”
“What else?”
Rebecca’s silence became an answer.
“Eleanor left something.”
Rebecca looked toward the window.
Charles lowered his voice.
“What did my wife leave?”
She shook her head.
“I can’t give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because of the promise.”
“What promise?”
Rebecca stood.
Charles stood too.
“Rebecca.”
She gathered her bag.
“Not yet.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Eleanor.”
Charles stopped.
Rebecca’s eyes were wet now.
“She knew she might not get the chance to explain everything herself.”
Charles barely breathed.
“So she made something.”
Rebecca nodded.
“What?”
“A recording.”
The coffee shop noise seemed to disappear.
Charles stared at her.
“Where is it?”
Rebecca picked up her coat.
“Safe.”
“Give it to me.”
“I can’t.”
“You absolutely can.”
“No.”
“My dead wife left me a message and you’ve kept it for three years?”
Rebecca’s voice cracked.
“She told me exactly when I was allowed to release it.”
Charles stepped closer.
“When?”
Rebecca looked him directly in the eyes.
May you like
“When Sophie remembered me.”
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