Chapter 6 - BROOKE'S FATHER
Malcolm Harrington arrived at the Newport estate with two lawyers and the confidence of a man used to being received.
Dominic made him wait outside the gate for forty minutes.
Then invited him into Catherine's old library.
"You accessed Owen's car."
Malcolm did not blink.
"My company serviced Mercer vehicles."
"After the service, the brake line was cut."
"Then speak to the mechanic."
"He's dead."
That got a reaction.
Small.
Enough.
Malcolm looked at her as if she were paperwork.
"Mrs. Shaw, I am sorry for your loss."
"Don't use my married name like you respected my husband."
"Dad, tell them you had nothing to do with Owen."
"You should have signed the agreement before Dominic returned."
Silence.
Brooke's face collapsed.
"What?"
"Thank you."
Malcolm's lawyer intervened.
"This conversation is over."
"No. It just became useful."
Sarah had recorded the meeting with consent posted at the library entrance under estate security policy.
"You think this makes you clean, Dominic?"
"No."
The answer came immediately.
"It makes you careless."
"Your mother understood that families survive by putting unpleasant work in other people's hands."
"Do not talk about her."
"Catherine talked about you enough."
He opened his briefcase and threw a photocopy onto the table.
A handwritten letter from Catherine.
Natalie,
If Dominic becomes what his father was, take Noah and leave the estate.
Their father, Michael Mercer, had died when Dominic was twenty-two.
Catherine rarely spoke about him afterward.
Malcolm tapped the letter.
"You think your mother built that trust because she trusted Dominic?"
"She built it because she was afraid of him."
Bell & Hale Legal Archives.
Preston's firm.
May you like
And in the bottom corner, written almost invisibly in Catherine's hand:
THIS COPY IS A TRAP.
