Chapter 6 - THE DEAD MAN’S WARNING
The emergency hearing was set for the next morning.
Sarah wanted Genevieve rested.
Genevieve wanted answers.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why wait until I had Nora?”
Sarah’s expression changed.
“Because of your father’s trust.”
Arthur Mercer had built Mercer Medical Logistics from two delivery vans into a national company. When he died eighteen months earlier, he left controlling shares to Genevieve.
But there was a condition.
If Genevieve died or became legally incapacitated while her child was a minor, voting control passed into a family trust administered by the child’s legal guardian.
Julian.
Genevieve stared at Sarah.
“You knew?”
“I knew the clause existed. Your father wrote it before he stopped trusting Julian.”
“What do you mean stopped trusting him?”
Sarah opened her laptop.
“I represented your father for one matter three weeks before he died.”
Genevieve’s pulse jumped.
“You never told me that.”
“He made me promise confidentiality unless you were in danger.”
“I’m in a hospital bed and my husband is forging my name. I think we’re past danger.”
Sarah nodded.
She played an audio file.
Arthur Mercer’s voice filled the room.
“Sarah, if anything happens to me before I change the trust, watch Julian. He’s been moving money through vendors that don’t exist. Genevieve won’t believe it at first. She loves him. That’s why I’m telling you.”
Genevieve stopped breathing for a second.
Her father had drowned after falling from his boat during a storm.
Julian had stood beside her at the funeral.
He had held her while she cried.
The audio continued.
“There’s something else. Eleanor knows.”
The recording ended.
Genevieve stared at the phone.
Sarah whispered, “Your father died four days later.”
Then Detective Ortiz called.
May you like
She had pulled the old Coast Guard file.
The emergency cutoff switch on Arthur’s boat had been disabled by hand.
