Chapter 7 - ELIAS’S SECRET
I didn’t ask Elias in the boardroom.
I waited until we were alone.
That made it worse.
We went into my old office.
The furniture had changed.
The view hadn’t.
Noah slept in his carrier beside the desk.
I closed the door.
“Tell me.”
Elias looked at me.
“Vale Capital started reviewing Mercer eighteen months before we met.”
“Why?”
“Debt exposure.”
“That’s not what Grant meant.”
“No.”
“Then tell me the rest.”
He exhaled.
“My father knew Victor Hale.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
“They were business partners briefly.”
My stomach dropped.
“Did you know who I was when we met?”
“Yes.”
One word.
One terrible word.
I stepped backward.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He didn’t defend himself.
That made me angrier.
“Was meeting me an accident?”
“Yes.”
“Was dating me?”
“Yes.”
“Was any part of our relationship connected to Mercer?”
“No.”
I wanted to believe him.
That was the problem.
I wanted to believe him too much.
He continued.
“When we met at the architecture foundation dinner, I recognized your name.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you spent the first twenty minutes talking about public housing design and never once mentioned your family.”
Despite myself, I remembered that night.
I had spilled sparkling water on his jacket.
He had laughed.
I hadn’t known who he was either.
Elias stepped closer.
“I should have told you about the investigation.”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid you’d think exactly what you’re thinking now.”
“That you used me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
His answer came instantly.
Then Rebecca knocked.
She entered carrying a tablet.
“We found Eleanor.”
My anger disappeared beneath adrenaline.
“Where?”
“Airport surveillance caught her boarding a private flight.”
“To where?”
“She never left.”
“What?”
“The aircraft remained grounded.”
Rebecca turned the tablet toward us.
Security footage showed my mother entering a private terminal.
Twenty-three minutes later, she exited through a service door wearing different clothes.
“She wanted us to think she fled.”
“Why?”
Rebecca swiped to another photograph.
A traffic camera had captured her car.
Heading toward Lake Chapala.
My grandfather’s house.
I grabbed my coat.
Elias stopped me.
“You’re not going there.”
“She’s looking for the files.”
“The files aren’t there.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
“Exactly.”
I understood.
It was bait.
Not ours.
Hers.
My mother wanted someone to follow.
Rebecca’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She listened.
Then looked at me.
“The police at your grandfather’s property just found a hidden room.”
I stared at her.
“What hidden room?”
“They don’t know yet.”
My grandfather had lived in that house for thirty years.
I had spent entire summers there.
There was no hidden room.
At least none I knew about.
An hour later, investigators sent photographs.
Behind the library wall was a narrow storage space.
Inside were seventeen boxes.
Company ledgers.
Photographs.
Contracts.
And one old digital recorder.
May you like
The label on the recorder contained two words.
FOR CLAIRE.
