Chapter 6 - THE FALSE RESCUE
Arthur opened the cellar door.
“Go,” he told Emily.
She grabbed the flash drive.
Vanessa caught her arm.
“Daniel will search the road and the orchard. Take my car.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t. But my keys are on the table.”
A fist struck the front door.
“Emily, open this door!”
Arthur pushed a heavy cabinet in front of the entrance while Emily ran toward the back of the cottage.
Vanessa followed.
“You’re coming with me?” Emily asked.
“My brother thinks I betrayed him.”
“Did you?”
“I haven’t decided.”
They reached the rear door just as glass shattered in the front room.
Daniel had broken a window.
Arthur shouted.
A crash followed.
Emily looked back, but Vanessa pulled her outside.
“Arthur knew the risk.”
“You brought Daniel here.”
“I suspected he was tracking my car.”
“You used us as bait.”
“I needed to know how much he had discovered.”
They ran across the wet grass toward Vanessa’s sedan. Emily climbed into the passenger seat while Vanessa started the engine.
Daniel appeared at the corner of the cottage.
His shirt was open at the collar, and blood marked one hand from the broken window.
“Vanessa!”
She reversed hard.
Daniel struck the side of the car as they passed.
Then they were speeding through the orchard.
Emily turned in her seat.
Daniel stood in the road, growing smaller behind them.
“Where are we going?”
“To somewhere Daniel cannot enter without causing a scandal.”
“Where?”
“Our mother’s house.”
Emily remembered the woman from Daniel’s family photographs. Margaret Mercer had not attended the wedding. Daniel claimed she was recovering overseas after surgery.
“Is she even in the country?”
“She returned last week.”
“Does Daniel know?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother controls the final vote in the trust review.”
Vanessa drove toward the city.
For twenty minutes, Emily asked questions, but Vanessa answered only some of them.
The Mercer trust had been established by Daniel’s grandfather, Charles Mercer. Bellweather House served as its legal center. Whoever formed a recognized household there before the age of thirty-five could petition for permanent control.
Daniel had failed once with Laura.
Emily was his final opportunity.
“What does my father have to do with this?” Emily asked again.
Vanessa tightened her hands on the steering wheel.
“Your father was an attorney named Thomas Warren.”
“My mother said his name was Michael.”
“Your mother lied.”
Emily stared ahead.
“Why?”
“Probably to keep you alive.”
The sentence made the inside of the car feel suddenly cold.
Vanessa turned through iron gates and stopped before a stone mansion surrounded by tall hedges.
Unlike Bellweather House, this place looked genuinely old. Ivy climbed the walls. Heavy curtains covered the windows. Two security guards stood at the entrance.
They recognized Vanessa but hesitated when they saw Emily.
“She is expected,” Vanessa said.
“By whom?” Emily asked.
The front door opened.
Margaret Mercer stood beneath the chandelier.
She was a striking woman in her early sixties, dressed in cream and black. Her silver-blonde hair was cut neatly to her jaw. She looked first at Vanessa, then at Emily’s bruised face.
“So,” Margaret said. “Daniel has begun repeating his father’s habits.”
Emily entered the house.
“I was told you knew my father.”
Margaret dismissed the guards and led them into a library.
The room contained shelves from floor to ceiling. At the center stood a long table covered with documents.
Margaret picked up a photograph.
It showed a younger version of herself beside a dark-haired man.
Emily immediately recognized her own eyes in his face.
“Thomas Warren,” Margaret said.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“Was he your lawyer?”
“He was my husband’s lawyer. Then he became the only person brave enough to expose him.”
“Expose what?”
“The trust was built on stolen property.”
Vanessa closed the library doors.
Margaret continued.
“Charles Mercer acquired Bellweather House through fraud. Its original owner disappeared, and the transfer records were altered. Years later, your father discovered the original deed.”
Emily felt the flash drive in her pocket.
“Where is the deed?”
“Thomas hid it.”
“Why didn’t he go to the police?”
“He intended to. Before he could, he died in a car explosion.”
Emily’s knees weakened.
“My mother told me he abandoned us.”
“Rose was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
Margaret’s expression hardened.
“My husband.”
“Daniel’s father?”
“Yes.”
Emily looked between Margaret and Vanessa.
“And now Daniel needs me because I’m Thomas Warren’s daughter?”
“He needs your signature,” Margaret said. “The trust agreement contains a restitution clause. If a direct heir of the attorney who challenged the original transfer recognizes the Mercer household as lawful, the old claim becomes almost impossible to reopen.”
Emily understood.
The marriage had not merely created Daniel’s household.
It had turned her into the person who could erase her father’s work.
“Did I already sign it?”
Vanessa answered.
“Not completely.”
“What does that mean?”
“The wedding documents established your relationship, but the final household confirmation must be signed during the review.”
Margaret opened a folder.
Inside was a copy of Emily’s signature.
Except Emily had never written it.
“They forged this,” she said.
“They prepared it,” Margaret replied. “Daniel intended to pressure you into confirming it later.”
Emily looked at Vanessa.
“You prepared it?”
Vanessa did not deny it.
A telephone rang somewhere in the mansion.
Margaret’s assistant entered moments later.
“Mrs. Mercer, the police are at the gate.”
“For what reason?”
“They are looking for Mrs. Daniel Mercer.”
Emily’s stomach tightened.
May you like
The assistant looked at her.
“They say Daniel has been found unconscious at Arthur Hale’s cottage, and they believe his wife attacked him.”
