Chapter 10 - MY MOTHER
My mother died when I was nine.
Car accident.
Rainy highway. Drunk driver. Wrong place, wrong second.
That was the story I had lived with for seven years.
I went home and asked Dad one question.
“Did Peter Mercer know Mom?”
The color left his face.
That was answer enough.
He sat down slowly.
“How did you hear that name connected to her?”
“Sloane.”
Dad rubbed both hands over his face.
Mom had been a labor attorney.
Six months before she died, she represented a group of maintenance workers employed by one of Peter Mercer’s construction companies. They claimed Mercer Development falsified safety reports after a worker fell from a scaffold.
“Did she win?” I asked.
“The case settled.”
“Did Peter hate her?”
Dad stared at the table.
“Peter hated losing control.”
My throat tightened.
“Do you think her accident wasn’t an accident?”
“No.”
He answered too fast.
“Dad.”
“I said no because the police investigated it. The driver was intoxicated. He pleaded guilty.”
“But?”
“There was one thing.”
Of course there was.
“Mom received threatening messages during the case.”
“You never told me?”
“You were nine.”
“I’m not nine now.”
“I know.”
“Then stop protecting me with half the truth.”
Dad closed his eyes.
The words hurt him.
I let them.
He went upstairs and returned with a cardboard file box.
Inside were Mom’s old case notes, newspaper clippings, and a phone sealed in a plastic evidence sleeve.
“The police returned this after the trial,” he said.
“Her phone?”
He nodded.
I turned it over.
The screen was shattered.
Across the back, in Mom’s handwriting, was a tiny sticker with a password hint.
Helen Lang arrived an hour later.
Ben came too.
He connected the old phone to a forensic reader.
Most of the messages were already known.
Then he found an unsent draft saved at 6:42 p.m. the night Mom died.
It was addressed to Dad.
DANIEL, IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, CHECK WESTBRIDGE FOUNDATION PAYMENTS. PETER IS USING THE SCHOOL TO MOVE MONEY.
Nobody spoke.
Dad looked like he had forgotten how to breathe.
I read the message again.
Mom had died six years before Peter Mercer joined the foundation board.
Helen noticed it too.
“How could she know about Westbridge payments?”
Ben opened the attachment linked to the draft.
A spreadsheet appeared.
The first payment was dated eight years earlier.
May you like
The recipient was a company I had seen that morning on the school’s vendor list.
Crowe Educational Consulting.
