Chapter 4 - DANIEL’S LOCKED DRAWER
Julia wanted to confront Grant immediately.
Detective Ortiz stopped her.
“If he’s involved, anger helps him.”
Julia stared at her.
“He stole my child.”
“Then give me evidence that survives court.”
That sentence kept Julia from driving to Grant’s house.
Barely.
The DNA result came that afternoon.
99.99 percent.
Thomas was her son.
Julia read the report three times.
Then she sat on the kitchen floor and cried.
Thomas stood in the doorway.
“Are you sad I’m yours?”
Julia looked up so fast it hurt.
“No.”
She opened her arms.
“I’m sad because I should have had you every day.”
He crossed the room slowly.
Then folded himself against her.
Emily joined them a second later.
For the first time, all three held each other.
That night, Julia opened Daniel’s old office.
Her husband had died four years earlier when his car went off a mountain road.
Police called it an accident.
Julia had believed them.
Now she believed nothing easily.
She searched his desk.
One drawer was locked.
She found the key taped beneath the bottom panel.
Inside was a red folder.
On the cover, Daniel had written one word.
THOMAS.
Julia’s hands started shaking.
Inside were copies of hospital billing logs.
A private investigator’s invoice.
Photos of Diane entering a grocery store with a young boy.
Thomas.
At age six.
Julia stopped breathing.
Daniel had known.
Emily stood in the doorway.
“Mom?”
Julia turned.
“Go back to bed, honey.”
Emily saw the picture.
“That’s Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“Dad knew him?”
Julia couldn’t answer.
At the bottom of the folder was a handwritten note.
Grant knows where he is.
Do not confront him until I have proof.
The date was two days before Daniel died.
Then she found one more page.
It was a printed email Daniel had sent to himself.
If anything happens to me, check the Mercer Children’s Trust.
Julia opened her laptop.
She had never heard of the trust.
But when she searched the family financial portal, she found it.
And beside the account balance was a name she had not seen in eleven years.
Thomas Daniel Mercer.
Current value: $18,740,611.
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Under “authorized trustee” was one name.
Grant Mercer.
