Chapter 10 - Eight DollarsSix months after Emma entered Bell & Finch with the locket, she returned to the same counter.
Victoria Bell’s attorneys tried to turn Emma into a fraud.
They displayed photographs of her modest house.
Her unpaid medical bills.
Her history of seasonal jobs.
They argued that financial desperation gave her a motive to manufacture a connection to Arthur.
The DNA evidence made that theory absurd.
So they changed tactics.
They claimed Emma discovered her identity years earlier and stayed silent until Arthur’s estate grew large enough to make returning worthwhile.
Emma sat beside her attorney, Rachel Monroe.
Arthur sat behind her.
He never looked at Victoria.
Then the defense called Raymond Mercer.
Raymond entered wearing a prison uniform.
Victoria smiled for the first time all week.
Her attorney held up the 2023 affidavit.
“Mr. Mercer, did you sign this document?”
“Yes.”
“Did Emma Carter know her identity before 2026?”
Raymond looked at Emma.
“Yes.”
A whisper rolled through the courtroom.
Arthur’s face changed.
Emma’s attorney stood.
“Your Honor—”
The judge raised a hand.
The defense attorney smiled.
“When did she learn?”
Raymond answered.
“Last month.”
The attorney frowned.
“That is not before 2026.”
“No.”
“Then why did you say yes?”
“You asked if she knew before today. Your question was sloppy.”
Several people laughed.
The judge silenced them.
The attorney’s face reddened.
“What about this affidavit?”
Raymond stared at Victoria.
“I signed it because she told me to.”
“Did she threaten you?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
Raymond swallowed.
“My daughter.”
Emma looked at him sharply.
Raymond had a daughter.
A daughter no one knew about.
The courtroom became silent.
Victoria’s attorney objected.
Overruled.
Raymond explained.
After leaving Charleston, he had briefly lived under another identity.
He fathered a child.
Victoria discovered her existence.
For decades, she used that knowledge to control him.
The affidavit was part of that control.
Then prosecutors introduced bank transfers.
Phone records.
Photographs.
Everything converged.
Victoria had known where Emma lived since at least 2001.
She had paid to keep the truth buried.
The civil claim collapsed.
The criminal case grew stronger.
After court, Emma sat alone on the courthouse steps.
Arthur joined her.
“You okay?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Me neither.”
They sat in silence.
Then Emma said, “I used to think finding out where I came from would make everything simple.”
Arthur looked at her.
“It usually makes things messier.”
“I had one mother. Now I have two.”
“Both loved you.”
“Both lied.”
“Yes.”
“One was scared. One was guilty.”
“Yes.”
Emma looked at him.
“And you?”
Arthur considered the question.
“I loved you.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
He looked toward the courthouse.
“I was obsessed with finding you. Sometimes I treated Eleanor like her grief was less important because mine was louder.”
Emma listened.
“I spent money. I hired investigators. I made speeches. I told myself I was doing everything possible.”
He shook his head.
“But there were days I chose work because searching hurt too much.”
Emma had never heard him admit that.
“I’m not the heroic father newspapers want me to be.”
“I don’t need one.”
Arthur looked at her.
“What do you need?”
“A grandfather who knows Lily hates raisins.”
Arthur smiled.
“I wrote it down.”
“A father who doesn’t make decisions for me.”
“I’m trying.”
“And somebody who understands Marjorie is still my mother.”
Arthur’s eyes softened.
“I do.”
Weeks later, Victoria accepted a plea agreement.
She would serve a substantial prison sentence and surrender assets obtained through fraud.
Emma was awarded control of the trust that should have belonged to Claire Bell.
She refused to move into a mansion.
Instead, she created something Arthur did not expect.
The Marjorie Carter Emergency Family Fund.
It would pay for prescriptions, emergency childcare, temporary housing, and food for parents facing short-term financial crises.
Arthur stared at the proposal.
“You named it after her.”
Emma nodded.
“She made terrible choices.”
“Yes.”
“She also raised me.”
“Yes.”
“And if she’d had somewhere safe to turn in 1995, maybe she wouldn’t have spent thirty-one years afraid.”
Arthur signed the first donation.
Ten million dollars.
Emma glared at him.
“You’re showing off.”
“I’m a grandfather. It’s legally required.”
She laughed.
Then Caleb entered.
“Arthur, someone’s here.”
A woman stood in the foyer.
Early forties.
Dark hair.
Nervous eyes.
She held an old photograph.
“My name is Julia Mercer.”
Raymond’s daughter.
She looked at Emma.
“My father asked me to give you this.”
Emma took the photograph.
It showed Marjorie holding seven-year-old Emma.
On the back was a handwritten note.
I couldn’t give you back your first family, so I tried every day to deserve being your second.
Emma began crying.
May you like
Arthur put an arm around her.
This time, she let him.
