Frank grabbed the edge of the kitchen counter as though it were the only solid object left in the room.
“Mother?”
The woman on the phone said nothing for a moment.
Then, “You always did need things repeated when you didn’t like the answer.”
Diane looked at Ross.
Ross mouthed, Is that really her?
Frank sat down slowly.
I had never seen him afraid of a voice before.
“What did you do to Howard?”
“Kept him alive.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is more of one than you deserve.”
Reed leaned toward the phone.
“This is Investigator Malcolm Reed. Identify yourself.”
The woman laughed once.
“Then investigate.”
The call ended.
Frank remained still.
I watched decades move across his face.
Whatever he remembered about his mother had just collided with the woman on the phone.
“What was she like?” I asked.
He stared at the phone.
“Dead.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He looked at me.
“Strict. Smart. Private.”
“Did she know Margaret?”
“I thought she met her after we married.”
“Thomas?”
“No.”
“Howard?”
“No.”
Joanna slid the Mercer Consulting documents toward him.
“She knew somebody.”
Frank rubbed both hands over his face.
“My father died when I was nineteen. Mother took over the bookkeeping for his construction business. She handled contracts. Insurance. Accounts.”
“What was the company called?” Joanna asked.
“Mercer & Sons.”
“Who were the clients?”
Frank looked at her.
Then he understood.
“Crescent Holdings was one.”
Joanna nodded.
Another connection.
Another old door opening.
Frank’s family business had worked for the same company linked to Thomas.
He stood abruptly.
“My mother used to keep duplicate files.”
“Where?”
“A warehouse.”
Reed’s head lifted.
“HMC?”
“No. It was called Mercer Materials back then.”
Frank walked toward the hallway.
Reed blocked him.
“Where is it?”
“Outside Port Angeles. Near the old mill road.”
Reed called dispatch.
Within minutes, officers were heading there.
I wanted to go.
Reed refused.
I told him I had spent the last day discovering dead relatives were alive and alive relatives were liars.
He still refused.
For once, someone saying no to me felt almost reassuring.
Frank sat with me in the living room while Diane and Ross stayed in the kitchen.
Sunlight entered through the plywood officers had temporarily placed over the shattered window.
Morning had fully arrived.
It felt offensive.
“How did your mother die?” I asked.
“Car accident.”
“Body?”
Frank closed his eyes.
“No.”
“Funeral?”
“Closed casket.”
I almost laughed.
He gave me a wounded look.
“You’re allowed.”
“I don’t want to be.”
He stared at the floor.
“My uncle identified her.”
“Is your uncle alive?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
That almost became a laugh.
Almost.
Frank said his mother’s car had gone off a coastal road during heavy rain.
The vehicle burned.
Identification was based on dental records.
I looked at him.
“Records can be changed.”
“Yes.”
“You sound like you know from experience.”
He accepted that.
He said Helena Mercer had opposed his marriage to Margaret.
Not because she disliked Margaret.
Because she distrusted Thomas.
That made no sense if Frank supposedly had never known Thomas then.
Frank realized it too.
“Mother used to call him ‘that Vale man.’”
“When?”
“Before Margaret and I married.”
Joanna, listening from the doorway, asked, “How would she know him?”
Frank’s eyes narrowed.
“My father.”
“What about him?”
“He had a business partner before I was born.”
“Name?”
Frank thought.
“Henry Vale.”
Silence.
Thomas and Howard’s family name.
My heart began pounding again.
Joanna took out her notebook.
“Henry could be related.”
Frank stood.
“Henry Vale was their father.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I remember Howard mentioning his father’s name when I found him.”
The families had not crossed once.
They had been entangled for generations.
Henry Vale worked with Frank’s father.
Helena handled the books.
Thomas and Howard grew up around the company.
Crescent Holdings became a major client.
The roots went back before any of us were born.
Reed called from the doorway.
“They found the warehouse.”
Everyone stood.
“Howard?”
“Not yet.”
“Helena?”
“No.”
The building was empty.
But there were signs people had left recently.
Food.
Medical supplies.
Blood.
And dozens of file cabinets.
Frank asked how much blood.
Reed answered carefully.
“Enough to concern me. Not enough to prove anyone died.”
Then he looked at me.
“They also found photographs.”
“Of what?”
“Your family.”
Every stage.
Me as a child.
My parents.
My sister.
Frank and me dating.
Our wedding.
Diane and Ross.
My house.
Some photographs were decades old.
Others had been taken within the week.
Someone had watched us for years.
Helena.
Or the people around her.
“What else?” Frank asked.
Reed hesitated.
“A hospital bed.”
Frank went still.
“Thomas.”
“Maybe.”
The warehouse appeared to have been where Thomas had been kept during his final months.
That meant the photograph of Frank, Margaret, and Thomas had likely been taken there.
Frank nodded.
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“You knew the warehouse.”
He looked trapped.
“I knew where Thomas was. I didn’t know my mother owned it.”
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you act as if you just remembered the building?”
“Because it had a different name.”
It was possible.
It was also convenient.
I was beginning to hate both facts equally.
Joanna received photographs from the warehouse.
She showed us one.
A wall covered with dates.
1971.
1972.
1973.
1974.
1975.
1976.
1977.
Beside each date were initials.
H.H.
T.V.
H.M.
M.V.
F.M.
E.H.
Our lives reduced to letters and years.
Then Diane pointed.
“What’s that?”
At the bottom was another line.
SEPT 25 — CORRECTION.
Today.
“What correction?” I asked.
Nobody knew.
Reed said investigators had also found a recording setup.
Microphones.
Cameras.
A computer wiped clean except for one audio file.
The file was labeled FRANKLIN.
Frank listened to it in the kitchen.
His mother’s voice filled the room.
“If you’re hearing this, Frank, then you found the warehouse after we left.”
He closed his eyes.
“You spent your life thinking I died because Thomas Vale threatened me.”
Frank looked at Reed.
He had apparently never known that.
“I did not leave because Thomas threatened me.”
Her voice continued.
“I left because your father did.”
Frank whispered, “Dad?”
Helena said Frank’s father, Samuel Mercer, had helped Henry Vale and Thomas build the earliest financial scheme.
Construction projects provided cover.
False repair costs.
Inflated land values.
Forced sales.
Coerced signatures.
Families lost property.
Companies acquired it cheaply.
Thomas later expanded the system.
Samuel wanted out.
Henry did not.
Helena discovered the records.
She copied them.
Samuel found out.
He beat her badly enough that she spent three days hospitalized under another name.
Frank stared at the floor.
I touched his wrist before I could stop myself.
He looked at my hand.
Neither of us moved.
Helena escaped.
Her supposed death was arranged with Howard’s help.
Howard had already broken with Thomas by then.
He believed exposing everything openly would get them killed.
So they built a hidden network of their own.
Not criminals.
Witnesses.
Accountants.
Former employees.
Victims.
They collected evidence slowly.
Helena and Howard had worked together for thirty-five years.
Frank stared at the recorder.
“You knew my mother?”
The audio continued as if answering him.
“Howard did not tell you because I asked him not to. I watched you from a distance. I saw you become a better man than your father.”
Frank’s eyes filled.
Then her tone changed.
“Until you repeated his worst mistake.”
Frank stiffened.
“You decided you had the right to control truth for everyone else.”
I looked at him.
He did not look at me.
Helena said the body switch had endangered everything.
Frank believed staging his death would force Thomas’s network into movement.
He was partly right.
But he had not understood who the network’s current leader was.
Not Howard.
Not Margaret.
Not Helena.
Not Gregory Hale.
Someone closer.
Someone who had access to family finances, estate documents, properties, and private schedules.
Someone who had spent years appearing harmless because nobody considered them important enough to suspect.
Diane said, “Who?”
The recording continued.
“Frank, if Eileen is with you, tell her I am sorry. She was never supposed to become part of this.”
I felt cold.
Never supposed to become part of it.
But I had been part of it before I was born.
Then Helena said the sentence that changed the direction of everything.
“Howard is with me because he came willingly.”
I stared at the recorder.
Frank stood.
“What?”
“He was not kidnapped.”
The blood.
The chair.
The photograph.
Staged.
Again.
I nearly screamed.
Helena explained.
They needed the current leader to believe Howard had been captured.
The abandoned vehicle had been part of the deception.
The blood was Howard’s, drawn deliberately.
The wallet was planted.
The photograph was staged.
The shooting at my house had not been.
That was real.
Their trap had gone wrong.
Someone else found the abandoned vehicle before Helena’s team expected.
Someone copied the setup.
Someone fired at us.
Howard and Helena were now in hiding because their operation had been penetrated.
The final ledger had been stolen.
Frank whispered, “By who?”
Helena answered from the past.
“If we have failed, look at the person who benefited every time the families fought.”
Ross frowned.
“Margaret.”
Diane shook her head.
“Too obvious.”
I thought about nineteen years.
Every fight.
Every inheritance argument.
Every comment from Diane.
Every time Ross blamed me.
Every time Margaret remained unseen.
Someone benefited from division.
Frank said, “Aaron.”
Everyone turned.
Aaron Bell had not been in the room for Helena’s recording.
He had left an hour earlier.
To retrieve additional trust documents.
My stomach dropped.
Aaron knew Frank’s estate.
My address.
The cameras.
The trust structure.
The seventy-two-hour deadline.
The storage unit.
He had arrived at exactly two.
He had access to everything.
Reed reached for his phone.
Before he could dial, Joanna’s phone buzzed.
She looked at the screen.
A transfer alert.
Money was moving out of the Franklin Mercer Family Trust.
Millions.
Authorized by trustee credentials.
Mine.
I stared at her.
“I didn’t do that.”
“I know.”
Another transfer.
Then another.
Ross swore.
Diane looked terrified.
Joanna said, “Who has access to your trustee documents?”
I answered with the only name that fit.
“Aaron.”
Frank grabbed his jacket.
Reed stopped him.
Then my phone rang.
Aaron Bell.
I answered.
His voice was calm.
“Eileen, I need you to listen carefully.”
“Where are you?”
“That isn’t important.”
“You’re stealing from the trust.”
“No.”
Joanna shook her head urgently.
Aaron continued.
“I’m moving the money somewhere they can’t reach it.”
“Who?”
A pause.
Then Aaron said, “Frank.”
I stared at my husband.
Frank’s face hardened.
Aaron continued.
“Your husband didn’t stage his death to catch Thomas’s network.”
Frank said, “Hang up.”
I didn’t.
Aaron’s voice lowered.
“He staged it because they were about to expose him as the current leader.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: Aaron Accused Frank of Running the Fraud Network, and the Evidence Against My Husband Came From His Own Secret Accounts
Before the Funeral Flowers Had Wilted, Frank’s Children Began Dividing My Home as Though I Had Already Disappeared
Part 10 of 35
