Chapter 12 - The Bottle Behind the Wall
Police searched again.
This time they knew what they were looking for.
A small prescription bottle.
They found it behind a loose bathroom access panel.
Mercer’s fingerprints were on it.
So were Michael’s.
The tablets inside were not identical to the capsule fragments recovered during Emily’s treatment.
Dad was right about that.
But it did not prove someone deliberately switched anything.
Medication could have come from multiple sources.
Investigators refused to leap ahead.
So did I.
Then Emily remembered a detail.
Tuesday, Mercer handed Michael a white bottle.
Michael removed two capsules.
Before giving them to Emily, he left the room to argue with Rebecca.
The capsules remained on the table.
Someone else entered.
A woman.
Emily hadn’t seen her face.
Only her hand.
A distinctive ring.
Silver.
Green stone.
Emily drew it.
Catherine stared at the drawing.
“That belonged to my mother.”
My grandmother.
“Who has it now?”
“I gave it to Sarah.”
I had lost that ring years earlier.
Or thought I had.
Michael once told me it fell down a hotel sink while we were traveling.
Had he lied?
Police searched his belongings.
No ring.
Then Rebecca saw the drawing.
Her face changed.
“I know that ring.”
“Who?”
“Michael gave it to someone.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“His attorney.”
A woman named Claire Donnelly.
Michael’s corporate attorney.
Also the person preparing the Friday sale.
Claire was brought in for questioning.
She wore no ring.
But photographs showed her wearing it at a charity dinner two months earlier.
Why had Michael given my mother’s ring to his attorney?
Claire claimed it was a gift.
Michael claimed she stole it.
Then financial records exposed their real connection.
They had been moving money together for years.
Claire helped establish the shell companies in my name.
The thirty-one million wasn’t stolen through those companies, but the fake records made it appear that way.
They were building a scapegoat.
Me.
Then investigators recovered deleted messages between Claire and Michael.
CD: Mercer is losing his nerve.
MB: Handle it.
CD: Not with the girl.
MB: We need Friday.
CD: I said no children.
Again, nobody’s story fit perfectly.
Claire appeared opposed to harming Emily.
So why was her ring at the building?
She finally admitted she had been there.
But she claimed she entered only after Emily became sick.
Then Emily listened to her voice.
“That’s not the woman.”
Everyone froze.
The mystery woman wasn’t Claire.
So who wore her ring?
Security footage answered part of it.
A woman left the building wearing a coat and hat.
Her face was obscured.
But she entered a car registered to—
Rebecca.
Michael’s sister.
Rebecca stared at the image.
“That isn’t me.”
“Your car.”
“Michael borrowed it.”
“Who was driving?”
“I don’t know.”
Police enhanced another camera angle.
The woman turned.
Not enough for a full face.
Enough to reveal age.
She was elderly.
I looked toward Catherine.
My mother.
Catherine stared back.
“That isn’t me.”
I wanted to believe her.
Then investigators isolated one detail.
The woman walked with a cane.
Catherine did not.
Jonathan Mercer provided the answer.
He looked at the image and whispered:
“I know who that is.”
“Who?”
“My wife.”
Alan Mercer’s mother.
Helen Mercer.
Catherine’s sister-in-law.
Supposedly dead for nine years.
I almost laughed from exhaustion.
Another dead person who wasn’t dead.
But Jonathan shook his head.
“No. Helen really did die.”
“Then who is the woman?”
He leaned toward the screen.
“My daughter.”
Alan had a sister.
Nobody had mentioned her.
“Name?”
Jonathan swallowed.
“Dr. Laura Mercer.”
“What does she do?”
“Pediatric pharmacology.”
My blood ran cold.
“And where is she?”
Jonathan looked toward Emily’s hospital photograph.
“I haven’t seen Laura in fifteen years.”
Then Detective Collins received an alert.
May you like
A woman matching Laura’s identity had just entered Emily’s hospital.
Using a staff badge.
