Chapter 8 - The Wrong Reflection
Daniel called Marisol immediately.
She answered from the office.
“Where are you?”
“At my desk.”
“Were you outside Evan’s school last month?”
Silence.
Evan’s stomach dropped.
Then Marisol said, “Yes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Why?”
“Because I was meeting Julia’s old accountant.”
Evan stared.
“What?”
Marisol asked them to come to the office.
Linda insisted they bring Helen.
At Mercer Ridge, Marisol locked the conference room.
Then she removed a flash drive from her purse.
“Five years ago, Julia asked me to keep something.”
Daniel looked stunned.
“You knew her?”
“I worked under the accounting manager. Julia came in twice a week.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because she made me promise not to unless Adrian’s activity started again.”
Daniel leaned back.
“So you knew.”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“I was twenty-seven and supporting two children. Your brother controlled my job.”
Daniel had no immediate answer.
Marisol continued.
“When Northstar appeared, I started checking old records. Then Evan began asking about the same invoices.”
Evan frowned.
“So you followed me?”
“No. I followed the accountant Julia used.”
The photograph had captured Marisol because the investigator Adrian hired had been photographing both of them.
Marisol had noticed the same car twice.
She began documenting it.
“The accountant’s name is Gerald Stone. He retired years ago. Julia gave him copies of bank records.”
Daniel asked, “Why meet near Evan’s school?”
“His granddaughter teaches there. It was where he agreed to meet.”
Helen inserted Marisol’s flash drive into an isolated laptop.
It contained scanned East Harbor bank documents.
And one audio file.
Julia’s voice filled the conference room.
Calm.
Tired.
Unmistakable.
Evan’s throat closed.
“I’m recording this because I need a clean record of what I found.”
Daniel looked down.
Julia described unauthorized vendor payments and Adrian’s explanations.
Then she said something nobody expected.
“Daniel knows Adrian took seventy thousand dollars. Daniel believes it has been fully repaid. I have not told Daniel about the second account yet because I cannot identify the owner.”
Helen paused the recording.
“The 4418 account.”
Evan remembered the paper from the cedar chest.
She continued.
Julia’s recording said the unknown account had received $35,000 from East Harbor.
Then $20,000 from another Mercer vendor.
Then $15,000 from a company unrelated to Mercer Ridge.
“I believe the account belongs to someone helping Adrian,” Julia said.
The recording ended.
Helen began tracing the historical banking information.
It took the rest of the afternoon.
The account owner was eventually identified through old tax records.
Daniel read the name twice.
His father.
Walter Mercer.
Evan frowned.
“Grandpa?”
Daniel stood.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Walter had founded Mercer Ridge.
He had died seven years earlier.
Helen examined the dates.
“The account was jointly held.”
“With who?”
She turned the screen.
Walter Mercer.
Adrian Mercer.
Daniel went pale.
Evan finally understood.
This had begun before Julia.
Before Claire.
Perhaps even before Daniel realized there was anything to investigate.
Adrian had been using their father’s account to hide payments.
Daniel whispered, “Dad knew?”
“Not necessarily,” Helen said. “Joint ownership means access, not knowledge.”
Daniel looked wounded anyway.
The company he believed had been built on trust now seemed full of invisible doors.
Linda’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then stood.
“The bank has frozen the remaining credit line.”
Daniel exhaled.
“That’s good.”
“Partly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Alder Development filed an emergency claim this morning alleging Mercer Ridge is in default on a separate $3.6 million obligation.”
Daniel stared at her.
“We don’t owe Alder anything.”
Linda’s expression hardened.
“They have a signed agreement saying you do.”
Daniel no longer asked whether the signature looked authentic.
He asked the question Helen had trained him to ask.
“Did I sign it?”
Linda shook her head.
“No.”
Evan looked at the stack of forged documents.
Adrian was no longer hiding the scheme.
He was accelerating it.
May you like
And somebody had just shown their hand.
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