Chapter 3 - AMELIA'S INSTRUCTIONS
Noah was examined at Boston Children’s before midnight.
The doctor found a bruise on his hip, another on his upper arm, and a healing mark behind his knee that I had assumed came from crawling under the kitchen table.
I sat beside the exam bed feeling like the worst father alive.
Tessa stood near the window.
“You didn’t know,” she said.
“I should have.”
“You trusted someone.”
“I trusted the wrong person.”
Noah reached for me. I lifted him carefully.
When the police finished taking photographs, Detective Lena Ortiz entered with a tablet.
“We reviewed several clips,” she said. “There’s enough for immediate charges. But there’s something else.”
She turned the screen toward me.
A man in a baseball cap entered my house through the service door two nights earlier. He never looked toward the camera. He walked straight upstairs.
“Who is he?” Ortiz asked.
“I don’t know.”
Tessa did.
Her eyes narrowed.
“That’s Grant Vale.”
Vivienne’s older brother.
My stomach tightened.
“What was he doing in my house?”
Tessa opened her purse and removed a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front in Amelia’s handwriting.
I stared at it.
“What is that?”
“Something Amelia gave me six weeks before the accident.”
I looked at her, stunned.
“You’ve had a letter from my wife for almost a year?”
“She made me promise not to give it to you unless someone tried to hurt Noah.”
Anger flared through me.
“You decided that for me?”
“No. Amelia did.”
My hands shook as I tore it open.
Inside was one page.
Elliot,
If you are reading this, someone has finally stopped pretending Noah is just a baby.
He is the controlling beneficiary of something much bigger than the Mercer trust.
Do not let Vivienne Vale near him.
Do not trust Grant.
And whatever happens, do not open the blue safe at the house unless Tessa is with you.
May you like
At the bottom, Amelia had written one final line.
The car accident was not the first attempt.
