Chapter 3 - My Father’s Signature
I followed my father into his study and closed the door behind us.
He didn’t tell me to leave.
That was his first mistake.
His second was trying not to look at me.
“What payment?”
“Elena.”
“What payment?”
“This isn’t the time.”
I laughed.
It hurt my lip.
“There are federal agents in our ballroom, someone erased security footage, a server was attacked over my camera, and Adrian Mercer just smashed me into a wall.”
I stepped closer.
“I think we’ve officially reached the time.”
My father poured himself water.
His hand wasn’t steady.
That scared me.
Charles Hartwell could stand before hostile shareholders while losing hundreds of millions of dollars and never spill a drop.
Tonight, water trembled against the rim of his glass.
“Seven years ago,” he said, “the Hartwell Children’s Foundation hired a financial controller.”
“Leah Monroe.”
His eyes snapped toward me.
“You know about Leah?”
“I know she died in a car accident three weeks after reporting irregularities.”
His shoulders lowered.
“How much do you know?”
“Enough to know the irregularities involved Mercer Development.”
Silence.
That was my confirmation.
For three months, I had been tracing payments from our foundation into fake construction vendors.
Money donated for children’s hospitals had disappeared through shell companies.
At first it looked like six million dollars.
Then fourteen.
By yesterday, I had reached forty-eight million.
Every trail eventually touched a Mercer account.
But the paper found beside Mia suggested something worse.
My father had touched it too.
“Did you pay Leah?”
“No.”
“Did you pay someone after she died?”
His silence answered before his mouth did.
I stepped backward.
“How much?”
“Two million.”
I stared at him.
“For what?”
“To protect you.”
I actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the alternative was screaming.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
He walked toward his desk and unlocked a drawer.
Inside was a small brass key.
My mother’s initials were engraved along one side.
E.H.
Evelyn Hartwell.
My mother had been dead for nine years.
I hadn’t seen that key since her funeral.
“Where did you get that?”
“She left it with me.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I never found the lock.”
I picked it up.
It was warm from his hand.
Then I remembered something.
A small archive room beneath the west library.
My mother used to call it the Winter Room.
The door had no modern keypad.
Only an old brass lock.
My father saw the realization on my face.
“Elena.”
I turned.
“Did Mom know about Leah?”
“I think so.”
“Did she know about the missing money?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because there are things your mother never told me.”
I walked toward the door.
His voice stopped me.
“Before you go down there, you need to understand something.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“The two-million-dollar payment had nothing to do with Leah’s death.”
“Then what did it have to do with?”
My father’s face seemed to age ten years.
“The night before Leah died, I received a photograph.”
He opened another drawer.
Then placed an old envelope on the desk.
Inside was a picture of me at nineteen years old.
I was leaving my college dorm.
A red circle had been drawn around my face.
On the back were six words.
PAY US OR SHE JOINS LEAH.
My blood went cold.
I looked at my father.
“Who sent this?”
He shook his head.
“I never found out.”
I held up the brass key.
“I think Mom did.”
Then my phone vibrated.
It was Owen.
I answered.
His voice came through fast.
“Elena, we searched Adrian Mercer.”
“And?”
“We found something in his jacket.”
“What?”
Owen paused.
“A key.”
I looked at the one in my hand.
“What kind of key?”
“Brass.”
May you like
Then he said two words that made my stomach tighten.
“Your mother’s.”
