Chapter 5 - My Father's PriceAt 11:45 the next morning, I sat inside an unmarked police SUV across from the Santa Barbara Mission wearing jeans, sunglasses, and the emotional exhaustion of a woman who had canceled a wedding, discovered a corporate conspiracy, and received a phone call from her missing father within the same twelve-hour period.
I hadn't slept there since my mother died.
I still paid for gardeners.
Security.
Repairs.
But I avoided the place because grief has geography.
Some rooms remember too much.
At 8:46 that evening, I returned in my wedding dress with white sneakers on my feet and three police vehicles behind me.
Detective Ruiz had insisted.
Good thing she did.
The west-side kitchen window was broken.
Marcus noticed it first.
"That wasn't like that Thursday."
"You were here Thursday?"
"I meet the caretaker monthly."
Ruiz raised one hand.
"Nobody goes inside."
She radioed the other officers.
I stood near the driveway while they cleared the house.
Rachel had come with me.
Samuel too.
Lenora remained at the wedding venue to give a formal statement.
Grant had been instructed not to leave Santa Barbara County while detectives reviewed the evidence.
Daphne had already hired an attorney.
Ten minutes later, Ruiz returned.
"House is empty."
"Was anyone here?"
"Looks like it."
The alarm had been disabled.
Not smashed.
Disabled with a valid code.
Only five people had codes.
Me.
Marcus.
The caretaker.
My mother, before she died.
And Grant.
I'd added him eighteen months ago.
Another decision I wanted to reach backward through time and undo.
Inside, Silver Oak smelled exactly the same.
Cedar.
Furniture polish.
Lavender.
The foyer still held my mother's narrow antique table.
Her ceramic bowl for keys.
Her landscape painting of Big Sur.
I stopped beneath the staircase.
For a second, I was twenty-eight again, standing there after the hospice nurse quietly told me my mother had stopped breathing.
Rachel squeezed my hand.
"Stay with me."
"I'm okay."
She gave me a look.
"Fine. I'm functional."
"Better."
Ruiz walked toward the library.
"Show me the safe."
My mother kept a wall safe behind a painting in her study.
At least, that's what Grant apparently believed.
We entered.
The painting had been removed.
The safe stood open.
Empty.
Marcus cursed.
I stared.
"Who knows the combination?"
"Your mother did," Marcus said.
"I reset it after she died."
Ruiz turned.
"Who knows the new combination?"
"Me."
"Anyone else?"
I thought.
Then remembered.
Grant once brought me here after a wildfire evacuation order.
I'd asked him to grab insurance documents.
I had opened the safe in front of him.
"He could have seen me enter it."
Ruiz photographed everything.
"Was anything stored inside?"
"Property deeds. Copies of insurance files. Some jewelry."
"Valuable?"
"My mother's watch. Maybe twenty thousand."
"Anything else?"
"Letters."
"What kind?"
"I don't know. Old correspondence."
"Corporate records?"
"No."
At least none I remembered.
Marcus walked toward the desk.
"Wait."
He crouched.
One drawer hung open.
"These files are wrong."
"What?"
"Your mother kept shareholder records here."
"You said there weren't corporate records."
"Not official originals. Personal copies."
He pulled out three folders.
Empty.
"The 2008 recapitalization documents are gone."
I looked at him.
"What do those do?"
"They establish how voting shares were redistributed after your father left."
My heartbeat accelerated.
"Could Grant use them?"
"Not by themselves."
"But?"
"If he's challenging ownership..."
"He could claim?"
"That your mother's transfer wasn't valid."
I stared.
"That's insane."
"Yes."
"But expensive to fight."
Marcus nodded.
Suddenly Grant's plan looked bigger.
Steal control through forged documents.
If that failed, challenge my ownership.
Create litigation.
Push me toward settlement.
But why?
Grant had a successful career of his own.
He wasn't poor.
His consulting firm made millions.
Why risk prison for more?
Ruiz's flashlight moved across the carpet.
"There's something here."
A muddy partial footprint.
She followed it toward the French doors.
Then stopped.
"Two sets."
My stomach dropped.
"Two people were here."
"Possibly."
Rachel looked at me.
"Grant and Daphne?"
"Maybe."
But something felt wrong.
I walked to my mother's desk.
A photograph remained beside the lamp.
Me at eighteen, holding a college acceptance letter.
My mother looked impossibly young.
Behind the frame was a handwritten note I'd never noticed.
Three words.
Ask Lenora first.
I stared at it.
"Marcus."
He came closer.
"What?"
I showed him.
His face changed.
"Was that always there?"
"I don't know."
I pulled the photograph from its frame.
Another line appeared beneath the first.
Not everything stolen is money.
My skin prickled.
Rachel whispered, "Your mother wrote that?"
"That's her handwriting."
Ruiz photographed it.
"Any idea what it means?"
"No."
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Something made me answer.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then breathing.
"Who is this?"
A man's voice.
Older.
"You're asking the wrong questions, Evie."
Every muscle in my body locked.
Only one person had ever called me Evie like that.
"Dad?"
Rachel's eyes widened.
Marcus went white.
The line crackled.
"I heard you didn't get married."
I couldn't breathe.
My father had been gone fifteen years.
"You've been watching me?"
"I read the news."
"The wedding happened six hours ago."
Silence.
Then:
"Grant Mercer isn't your problem."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"Where are you?"
"You always did inherit your mother's stubbornness."
"WHERE ARE YOU?"
Ruiz motioned for me to keep him talking.
My father chuckled softly.
"Don't open the box."
I looked at Marcus.
"The safe-deposit box?"
"Walk away."
"Why?"
"Because Catherine kept secrets that should stay buried."
"You stole from her."
Silence.
"So Lenora finally talked."
"Did you break into this house?"
"Not tonight."
Not tonight.
My blood went cold.
"So you've been here before."
"You don't understand what's happening."
"Then explain it."
"I can't."
"You abandoned me."
His breathing changed.
I hadn't planned to say that.
Suddenly I wasn't a thirty-four-year-old woman surrounded by police.
I was nineteen again.
Waiting for a birthday call that never came.
"You disappeared."
"I had reasons."
"You always had reasons."
"Evie—"
"My mother died."
"I know."
"You didn't come."
"I couldn't."
"You didn't send flowers."
"I did."
I froze.
"What?"
"The white lilies."
I remembered them.
No card.
My mother had refused to let them into the house.
I'd assumed they were from a business associate.
"Why are you calling now?"
"Because Grant found me."
My heartbeat stopped.
Ruiz stepped closer.
"When?"
"Fourteen months ago."
I put the phone on speaker.
"How?"
"He's smarter than you think."
"Why did he find you?"
"He wanted information about Hartwell."
"What information?"
"Enough to ruin you."
I looked at Marcus.
He shook his head, equally confused.
My father continued.
"I didn't give him anything."
"Why should I believe you?"
"You shouldn't."
At least that sounded honest.
"But if you open that deposit box, everything changes."
"What is inside?"
He was quiet.
Then he said something that made even Marcus sit down.
"Proof that your mother committed a crime to save Hartwell."
I swallowed.
"What crime?"
"I won't say over the phone."
"Then meet me."
"No."
"Coward."
The word came out before I could stop it.
He inhaled sharply.
Good.
"Meet me," I repeated.
"Tomorrow."
"Where?"
"The old mission."
"Noon."
"Come alone."
"Absolutely not."
He almost laughed.
"Still Catherine's daughter."
"Apparently."
"Evie?"
"What?"
"Grant isn't trying to steal your company because he wants money."
"Then why?"
"Because somebody is paying him."
"Who?"
The line went dead.
Ruiz immediately began working with the number.
Rachel stared at me.
"Your deadbeat father just reappeared on your wedding night and said someone hired your fiancé to steal your company."
"Apparently."
"This is officially the worst wedding I've ever attended."
I looked at my mother's message.
Ask Lenora first.
Not everything stolen is money.
I suddenly understood one thing.
Grant thought he was hunting documents.
My father feared the safe-deposit box.
My mother had hidden evidence.
And Lenora stood at the center of all of it.
I called her.
She answered on the second ring.
"Evelyn?"
"What is my father afraid I'll find?"
Silence.
"Lenora."
"I hoped we could do this tomorrow."
"We can't."
A long exhale.
"Your mother discovered more than stolen money."
"What?"
"She discovered who helped him steal it."
"Who?"
Lenora hesitated.
Then said:
"Someone still inside Hartwell."
I slowly looked at Marcus.
He was standing only ten feet away.
His face unreadable.
I turned my back.
"Who?"
"I never knew the name."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Catherine refused to tell me. She said the fewer people who knew, the safer you would be."
"Safer from whom?"
"That's what the box contains."
My eyes moved across everyone in the room.
Samuel.
Rachel.
Detective Ruiz.
Marcus.
For the first time, I realized something terrifying.
The person behind Grant's plan might not be outside my life.
They might already be standing in it.
May you like
And judging by the missing files from my mother's safe, they'd been waiting years for me to make one mistake.
Getting married to Grant Mercer had almost been it.
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