Chapter 2 - The House With the Open Back Door
Lauren drove directly to a hotel on the opposite side of the city.
She had packed two emergency bags days earlier and hidden them in the trunk beneath a blanket. Each bag contained clothes, school records, medication, copies of birth certificates, and one treasured item chosen for each girl.
Sophia had her sketchbook.
Chloe had a stuffed rabbit named Captain Blue.
Lauren had the legal folder.
She booked the room under her maiden name and asked the front desk not to confirm her presence to anyone. Then she locked the door, checked the windows, and helped the girls shower.
Chloe cried when Lauren washed sauce from her hair.
“Grandma said girls eat after men,” she whispered.
Lauren’s hands stopped moving.
“How often has she said that?”
Chloe looked toward Sophia.
Sophia answered for her.
“Whenever you went to Aunt Rebecca’s house.”
Lauren’s stomach tightened.
Her younger sister Rebecca had spent the previous year recovering from a serious accident. Lauren visited her twice a week, usually for less than two hours. Andrew often claimed he was working late, leaving Patricia to watch the girls.
“What else happened when I was gone?”
Sophia lowered her eyes.
“Grandma made us stand beside the dining table while Dad ate.”
“Did your father know?”
Sophia hesitated.
That hesitation hurt more than an answer.
“He told us not to make Grandma angry.”
Lauren sat on the bathroom floor and pulled both girls into her arms.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know,” Sophia said.
“I should have known.”
Chloe touched Lauren’s face with a damp hand.
“You know now.”
Lauren closed her eyes.
Those three words carried more forgiveness than she deserved.
After the girls fell asleep, Lauren opened the folder at the small hotel desk.
The first pages concerned the illegal loan. Andrew had forged her name to secure five-point-four million dollars against land held in the Ellison Family Trust, created by Lauren’s late father.
The loan matured the following morning.
If unpaid, the lender intended to seize the land.
But because the collateral agreement was fraudulent, the seizure could trigger a criminal investigation, freeze Blackstone Harbor’s accounts, and expose every related transaction.
Andrew had known this.
That was why he had planned the banquet on the night before the deadline. He expected to announce a new investor whose payment would cover the debt before anyone examined the forged agreement.
Lauren had ruined that plan.
She turned to the documents she had not shown him.
One was a ledger listing transfers to a company called North Vale Consulting.
Another contained insurance policies taken out on Lauren and the girls.
The policies were large.
Far too large.
Lauren had found them only that morning and had not yet determined whether the signatures were genuine.
Her phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
She let it ring.
A message appeared.
You should not have taken the folder.
Lauren stared at the screen.
A second message followed.
Andrew is not the one you should fear.
She photographed the messages with a separate phone and sent them to Detective Mara Voss, the investigator who had entered the banquet hall.
Mara called immediately.
“Are you safe?”
“For now.”
“Do not return home.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“We detained Andrew for questioning, but the financial warrant has limits. Unless we uncover evidence of another offense, he may be released tonight.”
“What about Patricia?”
“She claims the incident with your daughters was an accident.”
“Thirty people saw it.”
“Thirty wealthy people who depend on Mercer contracts.”
Lauren looked toward the sleeping girls.
“Will the hotel be enough?”
“Not if Andrew knows your habits.”
“He knows all of them.”
“Then change them. I’ll send an officer to the lobby.”
After the call, Lauren opened her laptop and accessed the encrypted archive she had created from Andrew’s computer.
Six weeks earlier, she had not been searching for criminal evidence.
She had been looking for proof of an affair.
Andrew had begun coming home after midnight, smelling of unfamiliar perfume. He guarded his phone, changed passwords, and became unusually attentive whenever Lauren asked about the Blackstone Harbor accounts.
Lauren expected to find messages from another woman.
Instead, she found forged signatures.
Then secret loans.
Then insurance policies.
The deeper she searched, the less she recognized the life around her.
A sound came from the hallway.
Lauren closed the laptop.
Someone stopped outside the room.
The handle moved once.
Slowly.
Lauren took the girls’ shoes from beside the bed and placed them within reach. Then she grabbed the heavy metal flashlight from the emergency bag.
The handle moved again.
A voice whispered through the door.
“Lauren?”
It was Rebecca.
Lauren exhaled and opened the door only after checking the peephole.
Her sister entered wearing jeans, a sweater, and an expression of barely controlled fury.
“I saw the banquet video,” Rebecca said.
Lauren closed the door.
“What video?”
“Someone posted part of it. Patricia dumping food on Chloe. Andrew grabbing your wrist. It’s spreading.”
Lauren felt both relief and dread.
Public evidence could protect them.
It could also make them easier to find.
Rebecca looked at the folder.
“So it’s true?”
“Yes.”
“Andrew forged your name?”
“Yes.”
“And the amount?”
“Five point four million.”
Rebecca sat down heavily.
“Dad warned us about people like him.”
“Dad liked Andrew.”
“No. Dad tolerated him because you loved him.”
Lauren remembered her father’s final year. Thomas Ellison had become quieter whenever Andrew entered the room. He had changed the trust three months before his death, placing additional restrictions on the land.
At the time, Lauren assumed he was being overly cautious.
Now she wondered what he had seen.
Rebecca glanced toward the bed.
“Come stay with me.”
“It isn’t safe.”
“My security system is better than a hotel.”
“Andrew knows where you live.”
“So does half the city.”
A knock interrupted them.
Three firm taps.
Lauren checked the peephole.
A uniformed officer stood outside.
She opened the door with the chain attached.
“Mrs. Mercer?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Detective Voss sent me.”
He showed identification.
Lauren examined it carefully before allowing him inside.
The officer’s name was Jonah Reed. He checked the room, windows, adjoining door, and hallway. Then he gave Lauren a direct number to call.
“Detective Voss also asked me to tell you that your husband has been released.”
Rebecca swore under her breath.
Lauren asked, “Where did he go?”
“We don’t know.”
At that exact moment, Andrew stood inside their darkened house.
The back door was open.
A lamp lay shattered near the kitchen.
His safe had been emptied.
He stepped into his office and found every drawer pulled out. Papers covered the floor. The hidden compartment behind the bookcase stood exposed.
The compartment was supposed to contain cash, passports, and a small black drive.
The drive was gone.
On the desk lay a single photograph.
It showed Lauren leaving the banquet with Sophia and Chloe.
Written across the bottom were five words.
She has what belongs to us.
Andrew lifted his phone and called a number he had promised never to use.
A man answered after one ring.
“You lost control,” the man said.
Andrew looked at the photograph.
“My wife took the wrong folder.”
“No. She took exactly what we left for her to find.”
Andrew’s breathing stopped.
May you like
“What are you talking about?”
The man disconnected.
