Chapter 6 - The Man Behind the MarriageThe blood inside the SUV belonged to Vanessa.
For six years, Daniel had lived in the estate and never known the door’s security sensor had been malfunctioning.
Vanessa knew.
Investigators found her abandoned shoes near the garden wall.
Beyond it, tire tracks cut across wet grass.
Someone had been waiting.
Ethan was arrested before he reached the garage.
When Detective Grant ordered him onto the floor, he raised both hands and demanded an attorney.
He never asked where Vanessa was.
That told Daniel more than panic would have.
Curtis Shaw was picked up forty minutes later.
He initially denied everything.
Then police showed him photographs of the black case.
His confidence disappeared.
“I didn’t know they were going to use it on anybody.”
Detective Grant stared at him.
“You delivered syringes and sedatives to a man planning to kill a cardiac patient.”
“He said it was for a private clinic.”
“At midnight?”
Curtis asked for a lawyer.
By sunrise, Vanessa Mercer’s photograph had been distributed statewide.
Daniel sat in his bedroom surrounded by officers.
The house felt violated.
Not because police were there.
Because the woman he had loved had transformed every familiar room into evidence.
Maya checked his blood pressure.
“You need to calm down.”
“My wife tried to kill me twice.”
“That’s exactly why you need to calm down.”
Daniel looked at her.
She raised one eyebrow.
For some reason, he laughed.
It hurt.
But it was the first genuine laugh he had managed in days.
Then Rebecca entered.
She looked exhausted.
“They froze Vanessa’s accessible accounts.”
“Good.”
“Her attorney has contacted me.”
Daniel’s smile disappeared.
“She has an attorney but nobody knows where she is?”
“Apparently he received instructions three days ago.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Three days.”
Rebecca nodded.
“She prepared for this.”
“What does she want?”
“Nothing yet.”
Marcus entered behind Rebecca.
“I think I know where she’s headed.”
Everyone turned.
Marcus placed a tablet on the bed.
A private aircraft reservation appeared on the screen.
Two seats.
Chicago to Nassau.
Departure: Friday, 6:30 a.m.
Passenger names were fake.
But payment had come from Ethan’s shell company.
“Airport?” Daniel asked.
“Plane never departed.”
“Then where?”
Marcus brought up another document.
“Vanessa has a sister.”
Daniel frowned.
“No. She told me she was an only child.”
“So did everyone else.”
Marcus slid over a birth record.
Vanessa Elaine Porter had been born in Indiana.
Her younger sister, Natalie Porter, lived near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Daniel stared.
Six years of marriage.
He had never heard the name.
“Police are checking the property.”
Detective Grant’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then her expression changed.
“What?”
Everyone watched.
Grant disconnected.
“Vanessa was there.”
“Was?”
“She left thirty minutes before Wisconsin deputies arrived.”
Daniel clenched his jaw.
“How?”
“Neighbor says a dark SUV picked her up.”
“Who?”
“No plate.”
Marcus looked at Ethan’s arrest photo.
“You think he arranged another driver?”
Grant shook her head.
“Ethan has been in custody all night.”
Daniel suddenly remembered something.
During Vanessa’s confession, she had said the fortune would belong to her and “the man I truly love.”
Everyone assumed Ethan.
What if that assumption was wrong?
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“What if Ethan isn’t the man?”
Marcus went still.
Rebecca frowned.
“You think there’s someone else?”
Daniel replayed six years of memories.
Ethan and Vanessa certainly had a relationship.
But perhaps it was business.
Perhaps sex.
Perhaps conspiracy.
But love?
Vanessa had never once used Ethan’s name during her confession.
“Find out who owned the SUV.”
Police eventually located traffic-camera footage.
The vehicle had been rented by an attorney named Preston Vale.
Forty-seven years old.
Estate litigation specialist.
And someone Daniel knew.
Preston had worked for Mercer Properties fourteen years earlier.
Daniel fired him.
The reason?
Preston had been caught secretly transferring confidential acquisition information to a competing developer.
Daniel had destroyed his career.
Or so he thought.
Marcus brought Daniel an old employee photograph.
Preston stood beside a younger Vanessa Porter at a company Christmas party.
Daniel’s blood turned cold.
“They knew each other before I met her.”
“More than that.”
Marcus opened another record.
“They lived at the same address for eleven months.”
Daniel looked up.
“When?”
“Two years before you met Vanessa.”
Rebecca whispered, “Ethan may not be the lover.”
Marcus nodded.
“He may be the financier.”
The conspiracy had just grown.
Police traced Preston’s SUV toward northern Wisconsin.
Then lost it near the state line.
Meanwhile, Ethan sat through his first formal interview.
His attorney advised him to say nothing.
Ethan ignored him.
“My involvement was corporate.”
Detective Grant looked unimpressed.
“You purchased sedatives.”
“No.”
“Curtis Shaw says you paid him.”
“For supplies.”
“To kill Daniel Mercer?”
“No.”
“Did you know Vanessa was poisoning him?”
Ethan looked toward his lawyer.
That tiny movement answered the question.
Grant leaned forward.
“You’re facing attempted murder conspiracy.”
Ethan’s face went pale.
“You think Vanessa is going to protect you?”
Silence.
“She ran.”
His jaw tightened.
“She left you in the house with the murder kit.”
That landed.
“She arranged an escape vehicle for herself.”
Still silence.
“Not for you.”
Ethan finally spoke.
“She said there would be two cars.”
His lawyer closed his eyes.
Detective Grant smiled slightly.
“Thank you.”
Ethan realized his mistake.
But it was too late.
Two cars meant planned flight.
It also meant Vanessa had lied to him.
Grant pressed.
“Who was driving hers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Preston Vale?”
Ethan’s face changed.
Barely.
Enough.
“You know him.”
“No.”
“You just recognized the name.”
“I want to leave.”
“You’re under arrest.”
“I’m done talking.”
Grant stood.
“For now.”
By afternoon, police had an arrest warrant for Vanessa and a search warrant for Preston’s Chicago condominium.
They found the apartment empty.
But inside a locked office drawer sat fourteen years of documents involving Daniel Mercer.
Old newspaper clippings.
Business profiles.
Property records.
Marriage announcements.
Even photographs of Daniel and Vanessa.
Some had been taken from across streets and parking lots.
This had not begun three months earlier.
It had not even begun six years earlier.
Someone had been watching Daniel for more than a decade.
Marcus showed him the photographs.
Daniel stared at his younger self entering restaurants, offices, charity events.
“What does Preston want?”
Marcus looked grim.
“Maybe revenge.”
Rebecca picked up one yellowed article.
The headline concerned the collapse of a real-estate company named Vale Urban Development.
Daniel remembered it.
He had acquired several of its distressed properties during the recession.
Preston’s father owned that company.
After bankruptcy, the elder Vale suffered a fatal stroke.
Daniel slowly understood.
“Preston blames me.”
“And Vanessa?”
Marcus opened a photograph.
Preston and Vanessa standing together on a beach twelve years earlier.
They were kissing.
On the back, someone had written:
Soon we’ll have everything they stole from us.
Daniel felt sick.
His marriage had not been an accident.
Vanessa had not met him at a charity gala by chance.
She had been sent into his life.
Then Detective Grant received another call.
This one changed everything.
A patrol unit had found Preston’s rental SUV abandoned outside Rockford.
Blood covered the front passenger seat.
Vanessa’s purse was inside.
So was her phone.
May you like
But Vanessa herself was nowhere to be found.
And suddenly the woman suspected of trying to murder Daniel might have become somebody else’s victim.
Related Stories
