Chapter 7 - The Trust
I wanted to call the number.
"They want emotion. We give them procedure."
She had the message traced while another detective pulled every version of the Mercer Family Trust.
I knew the basics. Rachel's father had created it before he died. When Rachel passed, her children became beneficiaries. I controlled the assets until Oliver turned twenty-five.
I had never treated it like my money.
The oldest trust schedule contained a clause I had forgotten.
Each biological child of Rachel Mercer received an equal beneficial share.
If a child died before formal registration, that share returned to the Mercer charitable foundation.
Guess who had become a paid director of that foundation eight years ago.
Grant Vale.
"If a second baby was falsely declared dead, half the trust moved somewhere it shouldn't have."
"And Grant controlled the foundation."
"At least on paper."
The current value of the missing half was $6.8 million.
Vanessa had not entered my life by accident.
She had been there when Rachel delivered.
She had access to the record that erased one of my sons.
Years later she married me.
Now she was trying to take control of Oliver's remaining share by having me declared unfit.
"She didn't marry me," I said. "She finished the job."
Oliver sat across the room with a child advocate, headphones over his ears, drawing.
I was grateful he couldn't hear me.
The trace on the ransom text came from a prepaid device that had connected near an abandoned medical records annex owned by St. Matthew's.
The annex was scheduled for demolition the next week.
We drove there with a tactical team.
The building smelled like dust and wet paper.
They found Anne's scarf in a basement hallway.
Then a locked records cage.
Inside were boxes labeled from the year Oliver was born.
One box had been opened recently.
A speaker crackled somewhere above us.
Vanessa's voice came through.
"Daniel, you were always better at finding problems than understanding them."
I spun toward the ceiling camera.
"Where is Anne?"
"Safe, if you stop digging."
"Where is my son?"
May you like
Then Vanessa said something that made the room tilt.
"Which one?"
