Chapter 5 - Grant Mercer's Double)
By sunrise, Mercer House had become a crime scene.
Grant sent Noah to a private hotel suite under Daniel's protection while police and forensic specialists searched the property.
Tessa refused to leave.
Grant almost ordered her to.
Then he remembered she had been the only person paying attention when everyone else was being manipulated.
So she stayed.
The security video showed a tall man entering the staff wing at 12:41 a.m.
He wore a dark suit identical to Grant's.
His face remained angled away from the cameras.
He pressed his thumb against a biometric reader.
The lock opened.
He entered Tessa's room.
Four minutes later he left holding an envelope.
At 12:47 he disappeared through the service corridor.
The camera outside the rear entrance had stopped recording for exactly six minutes.
Grant watched the footage seven times.
On the eighth, Tessa pointed toward the man's left hand.
"Pause."
Daniel stopped the video.
"What?"
"Zoom in."
The image enlarged.
The man's hand was visible beside his leg.
Tessa leaned closer.
"Grant wears his watch on his left wrist."
Everyone looked at Grant.
His watch was on his left wrist.
The figure in the video wore one on the right.
Daniel nodded.
"Good catch."
Tessa shook her head.
"Also his shoulder."
"What about it?"
"Grant's right shoulder sits slightly lower when he walks."
Grant frowned.
Tessa immediately looked embarrassed.
"You carry Noah on the same side all the time."
Daniel smiled despite the situation.
"She's right."
Grant studied the video.
The impersonator was good.
But not perfect.
"Fingerprint," Grant said.
Daniel had already requested the access logs.
The system showed successful biometric authentication.
A forensic technician approached.
"There's a possible explanation."
Grant turned.
"Copied print?"
"Potentially. Some older readers can be fooled by high quality replicas."
"This system was installed eighteen months ago."
The technician nodded.
"Then it would require something sophisticated."
"Meaning?"
"Someone had access to your fingerprints."
Grant nearly laughed.
"My fingerprints are everywhere."
"Not clean enough for what we're talking about. They would need controlled collection or direct capture."
Tessa looked at Grant.
"Your office."
He turned.
She continued.
"Vivienne arranged the executive health screening last month."
Grant remembered.
A private medical team had come to Mercer Capital.
Bloodwork.
Cardiac scan.
Biometric identity verification.
The company was called Northstar Executive Health.
Daniel immediately searched.
The company existed.
But the physician listed on Grant's invoice had never worked there.
Another false identity.
Grant's anger became something colder.
This was not simply a woman trying to marry into wealth.
It was infrastructure.
Fake employment records.
Fake medical personnel.
Compromised security.
Forged legal documents.
Someone had invested time and money.
Daniel turned his laptop around.
"I found something else."
Grant looked.
A scanned version of the forged trust amendment had metadata.
Created eight months ago.
Modified three weeks ago.
Author field blank.
But the originating file path contained three letters.
E M M.
Grant stared.
Daniel asked, "Does that mean anything?"
Grant could not speak.
Tessa looked between them.
"What?"
Grant finally answered.
"Evelyn Margaret Mercer."
His late wife.
Noah's mother.
Tessa stared at him.
"But Evelyn died before that file was created."
"Seven months before."
The room became silent.
Grant's marriage to Evelyn had lasted six years.
Their relationship was not perfect.
No marriage was.
But he loved her.
She was intelligent, stubborn and incapable of ignoring injustice.
She had worked as an attorney before Noah's birth.
Ten weeks after Noah was born, Evelyn died when her vehicle left a rain covered road in upstate New York.
Police ruled it an accident.
Grant had accepted that because accepting anything else would have destroyed him.
Now her initials appeared in a forged document created after her death.
Daniel said carefully, "Initials can be copied."
Grant knew.
But fear was not rational.
"What happened to Evelyn's computer?"
Grant asked.
Daniel frowned.
"Which one?"
"Her personal laptop."
"Police returned it after the accident."
Grant remembered placing it inside a locked cabinet in the study.
He had never opened it.
He could not.
Too many photographs.
Too many messages.
Too much of her remained alive inside that machine.
Grant walked toward the study.
The cabinet stood behind a wall panel.
He unlocked it.
The laptop was gone.
Grant stared at the empty shelf.
Tessa whispered, "When did you last see it?"
"Almost a year ago."
Daniel looked around.
"Who knew it was here?"
"Me."
"Only you?"
Grant thought.
"Evelyn."
Daniel gave him a look.
Grant closed his eyes.
"Obviously."
"Anyone else?"
"My brother may have known."
Tessa asked, "You have a brother?"
Grant's expression changed.
"Had."
Daniel looked at him.
Tessa noticed the tension.
Grant's younger brother, Julian, had vanished almost nine years earlier.
Not died.
Vanished.
They had argued over their father's company.
Julian accused Grant of pushing him out.
Grant accused Julian of stealing from the family.
Two weeks later Julian disappeared.
His car was found at an airport.
His passport was never used again.
Some believed he committed suicide.
Others believed he built a new life under another identity.
Grant had spent three years searching.
Then he stopped.
Daniel asked, "Did Evelyn know Julian?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Too well."
Tessa frowned.
Grant hated the memory.
Before Grant and Evelyn married, she had briefly dated Julian.
Only for three months.
But long enough for Julian to believe Grant stole something else from him.
Daniel closed the cabinet.
"Now we have Evelyn's initials on a forged file, her missing computer, and someone impersonating you."
Grant looked at him.
"What are you thinking?"
"I don't know yet."
Daniel's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His eyes shifted toward Grant.
"Understood."
He ended the call.
"What?"
"The forensic team recovered deleted browser history from Vivienne's bedroom laptop."
Grant waited.
Daniel turned the screen.
A search query appeared.
HOW LONG AFTER DEATH CAN A TRUST AMENDMENT BE CHALLENGED.
Another.
TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP WHEN SURVIVING PARENT IS MEDICALLY INCAPACITATED.
Another.
PRIVATE AIRFIELDS NEAR ZURICH.
Tessa covered her mouth.
Grant read the last query.
It had been made only five days earlier.
TRANSPORTING A MINOR INTERNATIONALLY WITH EMERGENCY GUARDIANSHIP ORDER.
Grant's face went numb.
They were not planning to wait for him to die.
They were planning to make him legally incapable of stopping them.
Daniel scrolled lower.
There was one final search.
It had been made yesterday.
HOW FAST DOES KETAMINE APPEAR IN TOXICOLOGY.
Grant stared.
Daniel slowly closed the laptop.
Nobody spoke.
Then Grant's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Silence.
"Who is this?"
A distorted male voice replied.
May you like
"You weren't supposed to come home early."
The call ended.
