Chapter 9 - BLOOD ON HIS SHIRT
“Daniel!”
He didn’t answer.
There was blood on his shoulder.
Too much.
I pressed both hands against the wound.
“Look at me.”
His eyes opened.
“I’m okay.”
“You were shot.”
“Technically, yes.”
“This isn’t funny!”
“It hurts too much to be funny.”
Sirens screamed nearby.
The car was gone.
Grant had disappeared.
At the hospital, doctors said the bullet passed through Daniel’s upper shoulder without hitting bone or major arteries.
Lucky.
I hated that word.
Nothing about the last ten years felt lucky.
Mia arrived with Claire two hours later.
She saw Daniel in the bed and burst into tears.
He immediately tried to sit up.
“Hey. I’m okay.”
“You got shot!”
“Small shot.”
“There’s no small getting shot!”
I looked away because I was suddenly crying too.
Mia climbed onto the chair beside the bed.
“Did somebody do this because of us?”
Daniel looked at me.
I answered.
“Because of something that started a long time ago.”
Mia frowned.
“Adults make everything complicated.”
Daniel smiled weakly.
“Yes, we do.”
The flash drive had survived.
Daniel’s attorney brought a laptop.
Inside were bank records, voice recordings, scanned memos, and hundreds of emails.
Grant had kept everything.
Insurance.
One recording was dated ten years earlier.
Vivian’s voice.
“If Elena believes Daniel wants a divorce, she’ll leave.”
Victor Mercer answered.
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will.”
“What about the girl?”
“What girl?”
“Elena’s pregnant.”
I stopped breathing.
Daniel gripped the hospital blanket.
Vivian’s recorded voice came back.
“Then we make sure Daniel never knows.”
Mia was not in the room when we played it.
Thank God.
Daniel stared at the laptop.
“My mother knew before Mia was born.”
I closed my eyes.
Another file contained payments.
One to Grant.
One to a document service.
One to a woman in Phoenix.
One to my old landlord.
Every disaster in my life had a receipt.
Then we found something else.
A transfer made two weeks after I left Chicago.
$250,000.
The fake settlement.
The receiving account wasn’t mine.
It belonged to a shell company.
Its registered agent was Brooke Mercer.
Daniel stared at the screen.
“No.”
His attorney leaned closer.
“She would’ve been twenty-four.”
Daniel looked sick.
“She knew?”
I remembered Brooke slapping me.
Why are you protecting a salesgirl?
Maybe that wasn’t jealousy.
Maybe it was panic.
Daniel called her.
Straight to voicemail.
He called again.
Nothing.
Then my phone rang.
Brooke.
I answered.
“Elena?”
Her voice shook.
“Where are you?”
“Why?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“About the money?”
Silence.
That was enough.
“You knew.”
“No. Not then.”
“Then when?”
“Please.”
“Brooke.”
“I found out three years ago.”
I looked at Daniel.
“She knew for three years.”
His face hardened.
Brooke started crying.
“My father told me Daniel’s first marriage had been handled. I thought it was legal.”
“Until?”
“Until I found the account.”
“And you still agreed to marry him.”
“I loved him.”
I almost laughed.
“That’s your defense?”
“No.”
Her breathing became ragged.
“My father knows Grant gave you the files.”
“How?”
“Because he’s looking for me too.”
Daniel took the phone.
“Where are you?”
Brooke went quiet.
“Daniel?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at my apartment.”
“Stay there.”
“No.”
We heard something crash through the phone.
May you like
Brooke screamed.
Then the line went dead.
