Chapter 10 - The Marriage License
The wedding guests were gone before midnight.
White flowers lay scattered across the ballroom floor. Half-filled glasses remained on tables. The orchestra packed its instruments without speaking.
Sophie sat on the edge of the stage while Evelyn removed the last pins from her hair.
“Are you sad?” Sophie asked.
“About what?”
“The wedding.”
Evelyn looked toward the altar.
“I am sad that I almost invited someone dangerous into our home.”
“Do you still love him?”
The question was more difficult.
“I loved the person he pretended to be.”
“Is that the same thing?”
“No.”
Sophie considered this.
“Then maybe you are not losing him. Maybe he was never there.”
Evelyn smiled despite the ache in her chest.
Mara entered carrying the unsigned marriage license.
“The clerk confirmed it has no legal effect.”
Evelyn tore the document in half.
Damon returned from the security office.
“The external deletion command came from a vehicle parked two streets away. Traffic cameras lost it near the river.”
“Who was inside?”
“The plates belonged to a car destroyed eight years ago.”
Evelyn showed him the message from Adrian’s number.
Mara examined the timestamp.
“It was sent while Marianne was in custody.”
“Could Preston have scheduled it?”
“His phone was already confiscated.”
Damon checked the number through the hotel’s communication system.
“The message did not actually come through the mobile network. It was routed through an old Mercer Crown internal server.”
“Which property?”
He entered the code.
His expression changed.
“The original hotel.”
Room 314.
Ortiz returned to the ballroom after questioning Preston.
“He is blaming Marianne.”
“Of course.”
“He admits planting the phone and participating in the custody plan. He claims he knew nothing about Adrian’s accident.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe he knows enough to be afraid.”
“What did Marianne mean by the wrong inheritance?”
Ortiz looked at Sophie before answering.
“Adrian’s investigation was not limited to hotel shares. He traced an account called Northstar Reserve. We never discovered who owned it.”
“How much money?”
“At least six hundred million dollars.”
Mara stared at her.
“Why would Adrian hide evidence about an account that large in an abandoned hotel?”
“Because he believed the account was funded through stolen company assets, public contracts, and private trusts.”
Evelyn remembered Adrian’s final recorded words.
If anything happens to me, Evelyn gets the evidence.
“What does it have to do with Sophie?”
Ortiz placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Adrian leaving a bank in Geneva six months before his death. Beside him was Marianne.
Between them stood a man whose face was partly hidden by an umbrella.
On the back, someone had written:
BENEFICIARY CONFIRMED
Sophie looked at the photograph.
“That is Daddy’s blue coat.”
Evelyn pointed to the third person.
“Do you recognize him?”
Sophie shook her head.
Damon enlarged the image.
The man wore a ring shaped like a bird with open wings.
Mara’s face went pale.
“I have seen that ring.”
“Where?”
“On Grant Bell.”
The chairman of Mercer Crown.
Evelyn immediately called Grant.
His phone went directly to voicemail.
Damon contacted the security team at company headquarters.
No one answered.
A minute later, an automated alert appeared on Evelyn’s laptop.
Grant Bell had called an emergency board meeting for six the following morning.
The agenda contained one item.
REMOVAL OF EVELYN MERCER AS ACTING CUSTODIAN OF THE SOPHIE MERCER VOTING TRUST
Marianne had been arrested.
Preston had confessed.
May you like
The wedding scheme had failed.
Yet someone was still trying to take control of Sophie’s inheritance before sunrise.
