Chapter 6 - The Plan for Grant)
Grant immediately handed the phone to Daniel.
"Trace it."
Daniel already had his laptop open.
The number was spoofed.
The network route bounced through multiple countries.
Professional.
Grant looked toward the windows.
Morning sunlight flooded the same living room where Noah had been attacked less than twenty hours earlier.
Everything looked normal.
That made it worse.
Grant had spent his career measuring risk.
Companies.
Markets.
People.
He had built Mercer Capital by believing numbers revealed what emotion concealed.
Yet someone had built an operation inside his own home and he had seen none of it.
Tessa entered carrying coffee.
She placed a cup beside Grant.
"You need to drink something."
"I need answers."
"You'll think better with coffee."
He looked at her.
Despite the swelling near her temple, she sounded exactly as she had every morning for eleven months.
Practical.
Calm.
Focused.
Grant realized how often he had depended on her without noticing it.
"Thank you."
She nodded.
Daniel returned from speaking with investigators.
"We need to reconstruct your last two months."
Grant frowned.
"Why?"
"If they intended to create medical incapacity, they may already have started."
Grant thought about the search query.
Ketamine.
He felt suddenly uneasy.
"Three weeks ago I passed out in my office."
Daniel looked at him sharply.
"You told me you were exhausted."
"I thought I was."
"What happened?"
"Board dinner. Two drinks. Next thing I remember, my assistant was waking me on the office sofa."
Tessa said, "You came home sick."
Grant remembered.
Headache.
Nausea.
Confusion.
Vivienne had taken care of him.
Or claimed to.
Daniel asked, "Doctor?"
"Vivienne called someone."
"Northstar?"
Grant closed his eyes.
Of course.
The fake medical company.
Tessa asked, "Did they take blood?"
"Yes."
Daniel swore quietly.
"If they were testing dosage, they may have been measuring how your body responded."
Grant stood.
"Find the doctor."
"We're trying."
"Try harder."
Daniel did not react to the anger.
He understood it.
Tessa said, "There was another night."
Grant turned.
"What night?"
"Two weeks ago. You came home from dinner and could barely walk."
"I had drinks."
"You had one glass of wine."
Grant stared.
"How do you know?"
"Because you called from the restaurant and asked me whether Noah was awake."
Grant vaguely remembered.
"You said you were having one drink, then coming home."
Daniel asked, "Who were you with?"
Grant thought.
"Vivienne."
Silence.
The plan became clearer.
Create a history.
Episodes of confusion.
Collapse.
Medical intervention.
Perhaps eventually a diagnosis.
Grant imagined court documents describing him as unstable or chemically dependent.
Vivienne, the concerned fiancée.
Then wife.
Then temporary guardian.
He looked toward the place where Noah's toy still sat beside the sofa.
"Why Noah?"
Tessa answered quietly.
"Money."
Grant shook his head.
"There are easier ways to steal money."
Daniel agreed.
"Your estate structure is complicated. Noah's trust isn't accessible to a guardian for personal spending."
Grant looked at the forged amendment.
"Unless the trust itself was being changed."
Daniel nodded.
"Exactly."
The original Mercer trust contained assets from Grant's father.
Commercial property.
Private equity interests.
A block of Mercer Capital voting shares.
Noah would eventually control more than money.
He would control the family company.
Grant's father had designed it that way.
Grant suddenly remembered something.
"The voting clause."
Daniel frowned.
"What about it?"
"If I become incapacitated, my shares transfer into voting trust."
"Controlled by?"
"Three trustees."
"Who?"
"Myself, Evelyn and Julian."
Tessa stared.
"Two of those people are gone."
"Exactly."
After Evelyn's death and Julian's disappearance, Grant had planned to amend the trust.
He never did.
Because doing so required opening files connected to both of them.
Daniel understood.
"So if you're incapacitated..."
"The remaining active trustee controls the vote."
"That's you."
"Unless someone proves another trustee is alive."
Silence.
Tessa looked between them.
"Julian."
Grant nodded.
Daniel stood.
"If Julian is alive, and someone establishes his identity, he could control Mercer voting shares while you're incapacitated."
"And if Noah becomes his ward..."
Tessa finished.
"He controls the heir too."
Grant stared at the forged document.
For the first time, the scheme had a shape.
But one piece did not fit.
"Vivienne couldn't marry Julian and become my spouse."
Daniel leaned against the table.
"Unless Vivienne isn't working for Julian."
"Then who?"
Daniel's eyes moved toward the ceiling camera.
"Someone who wants you to think she is."
A police investigator entered.
"We found fingerprints on the security tablet."
Grant stood.
"Vivienne?"
"Yes."
Grant expected that.
The investigator continued.
"And another set."
"Whose?"
"We don't know."
Grant frowned.
"No database match?"
"Not yet."
The investigator handed Daniel a preliminary report.
"The second set appears repeatedly on the tablet. More often than Vivienne's."
Tessa asked, "Could it be staff?"
"We're comparing."
Grant said, "Check mine."
"We did. Not yours."
Daniel scanned the report.
Then stopped.
"What?"
Daniel pointed toward one detail.
The unknown prints appeared on the back casing, inside the battery compartment and beneath a protective cover installed by the security company.
Grant's expression changed.
"That means whoever left them handled the tablet before it was installed."
The investigator nodded.
"When was installation?"
"Eighteen months ago."
Seven months before Tessa arrived.
Nine months before Vivienne met Grant.
The scheme predated both women.
Grant's phone vibrated.
A message from Mercer Capital's legal department.
URGENT.
He opened it.
The company's general counsel had found something during a routine filing review.
A petition had been submitted in Delaware forty eight hours earlier.
It requested temporary suspension of Grant Mercer's voting authority on grounds of suspected medical impairment.
Grant stared at the name of the petitioner.
Not Vivienne Cross.
Not Julian Mercer.
The petition had been filed by someone Grant had trusted for fifteen years.
May you like
His own chief financial officer.
Richard Vale.
