Chapter 8 - Harold's SecretDaniel laughed.
I read it three times.
Ask Rachel why.
Daniel stared at me.
“Why what?”
“I don't know.”
Bell watched my face.
“Think.”
“I am.”
“Did you ever meet Pike outside estate business?”
“No.”
“Any conflict?”
“No.”
“Any reason he'd target you personally?”
“I barely knew him.”
But that wasn't entirely true.
I had met Graham Pike once before Harold died.
I just hadn't realized it mattered.
Seven months earlier, my firm had been hired by a nonprofit medical foundation to investigate missing grant money.
We discovered one board member had approved suspicious payments.
The board member resigned before the report became public.
His name?
Graham Pike.
I sat straighter.
“Oh my God.”
“What?” Bell asked.
“I investigated him.”
Daniel frowned.
“When?”
“Last year.”
I explained.
The nonprofit had quietly settled the matter.
No charges.
No publicity.
But Graham had lost his board seat.
At the time, I never met him personally.
My report had been delivered through attorneys.
“Did he know you wrote it?” Bell asked.
“My name was on the report.”
Silence.
Daniel looked sick.
“So when Dad hired him…”
“He already knew who I was.”
Bell's jaw tightened.
Graham hadn't joined Evelyn's scheme because of me.
But once Harold died and I began reviewing the estate, Graham recognized the person examining the books.
The same accountant who had exposed him once before.
That made the attacks more understandable.
And more terrifying.
Graham knew exactly what I could do.
Bell asked, “What did the nonprofit investigation involve?”
“Payments to a consulting company.”
“Name?”
I searched my memory.
“Pinnacle Strategic Outreach.”
Bell typed it into his phone.
“Owners?”
“Hidden behind another LLC.”
“What happened to the money?”
“Never fully recovered.”
“How much?”
“About eight hundred thousand.”
Daniel stared.
“Could it connect?”
“Yes.”
My pulse increased.
“I need my work files.”
Bell frowned.
“From last year?”
“My firm archives everything.”
“Can you access them?”
“Yes.”
Five minutes later, I logged into the secure portal.
I found the old case.
Pinnacle Strategic Outreach.
Payments.
Routing numbers.
Receiving bank.
I compared those to the Mercer shell companies.
One account number ended in 8841.
So did an account used by Mercer Lifestyle Holdings.
Same bank.
Same branch.
Different company name.
“That's not coincidence,” I whispered.
Bell leaned closer.
“What does it mean?”
“It means Graham may have been laundering stolen money through the same financial network before Harold's estate.”
“How long?”
“At least two years earlier.”
Daniel stared.
“So Mom and Martin weren't running this.”
I shook my head.
“Maybe not.”
Graham might have been.
Bell called his financial crimes unit.
By evening, the investigation expanded dramatically.
Federal agents joined because transfers crossed state lines.
Bank subpoenas revealed millions moving through related companies.
Not two million.
Almost fourteen.
Some came from Harold.
Some from Mercer Building Supply.
Some from nonprofits.
Some from elderly clients whose estates Graham managed.
He had been stealing from people for years.
Evelyn and Martin weren't the architects.
They were participants.
Useful participants.
Bell returned after midnight.
“We found Pike's assistant.”
“Where?”
“Airport parking garage.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
She had been trying to leave the state.
When questioned, she told investigators Graham maintained a second office.
Not downtown.
A private property outside Chapel Hill.
Police searched it.
They found financial records.
Passports.
Cash.
And photographs.
Dozens.
People Graham considered risks.
Former clients.
Employees.
Investigators.
Me.
One photograph showed me leaving the nonprofit board meeting where my report had been presented.
Another showed Daniel and me at Harold's funeral.
Another showed our house.
Bell laid them across the hospital table.
“This is surveillance.”
Daniel's voice shook with rage.
“He'd been watching us for months.”
Bell nodded.
“Possibly longer.”
I looked at one photograph.
It showed Evelyn standing beside Graham outside a restaurant.
Date stamped six weeks before Harold died.
“What is that?”
Bell followed my gaze.
“We're checking.”
I picked up another.
Graham and Evelyn outside a pharmacy.
Another.
Martin meeting Graham in a parking structure.
They weren't simply business associates.
They had been meeting privately.
Then I noticed something in the corner of one photograph.
A vehicle.
Black SUV.
The license plate was partially visible.
I knew that car.
“That's Graham's.”
Bell looked.
“You sure?”
“He drove it to our house after Harold died.”
Bell took the photo.
The timestamp was the morning of my fall.
My pulse spiked.
“Where was this taken?”
He read the note on the back.
“Your neighborhood.”
Suddenly the entire picture changed again.
Evelyn had been near my house.
But Graham had too.
“What if Evelyn didn't loosen the railing?”
Daniel looked at me.
“She confessed.”
“She said she loosened one bolt.”
I remembered the railing.
Multiple mounting bolts had failed.
One washer on the stairs.
One bolt at the bottom.
Bell became still.
“You think more than one person tampered with it?”
“Maybe Evelyn loosened one.”
“And Pike loosened another?”
“I don't know.”
But why?
Why would two people independently sabotage the same railing?
Unless Evelyn had been ordered to do it and Graham checked her work.
Martin said Graham managed the scheme.
What if Graham had also managed the cleanup?
My laptop.
The stolen report.
The surveillance.
My fall.
The kidnapping.
Bell picked up his phone.
“We need the forensic report on that railing immediately.”
The result came at three in the morning.
Three fasteners had been deliberately loosened.
Two showed tool marks consistent with Evelyn's wrench.
The third did not.
Different tool.
Different angle.
Someone else had touched it.
Daniel stared at the report.
“Graham.”
Bell nodded.
“Likely.”
My stomach turned.
Evelyn had tried to kill me.
But she hadn't acted alone even during the first attempt.
Then Bell's phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, his expression had changed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They found Pike's SUV.”
“Where?”
“Near Falls Lake.”
“Is he there?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Bell looked at Daniel.
“There's a body.”
The dead man had no identification.
His wallet was missing.
His phone gone.
But he wore a signet ring with the Mercer family crest.
Daniel's face drained.
“That was Dad's.”
Bell nodded.
“Your father was buried wearing one?”
“No.”
Daniel swallowed.
“He gave it to Martin.”
The body wasn't Martin.
Martin was in custody.
Which meant someone else had Harold's ring.
Someone close enough to the family to possess it.
The medical examiner estimated the man had been dead for months.
Possibly since before Harold's funeral.
And when dental records finally identified him, Daniel made a sound I had never heard from another human being.
The dead man was Harold's former accountant.
A man who had disappeared shortly after telling Harold that money was missing.
Police had assumed he'd moved overseas.
He hadn't.
Someone had killed him.
And buried him near the lake.
Graham Pike was no longer wanted just for financial crimes.
He was wanted for murder.
At 5:42 a.m., my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Bell gestured for me to answer.
I pressed speaker.
“Hello?”
A man's voice.
Smooth.
Calm.
Familiar.
Graham Pike.
“Rachel.”
My skin crawled.
“Where are you?”
He laughed softly.
“You already know the question you should be asking.”
“What question?”
“Why.”
I looked at Bell.
He motioned for me to keep talking.
“Why what?”
“Why did Harold choose Daniel as executor?”
“I don't know.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“You never wondered.”
My heart beat faster.
“Tell me.”
A pause.
Then Graham said something that made Daniel stop breathing.
“Because Harold knew his wife had been stealing from him.”
May you like
Silence.
“And he knew Daniel wasn't Evelyn's son.”
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