Chapter 4 - Someone Was Reading My House
I called the school counselor from a burner phone.
Her name was Dana Brooks.
She sounded relieved and angry at the same time.
"Mr. Mercer, I've been trying to reach you for six weeks."
"I never got a message."
"I emailed you."
"Which address?"
She gave me the correct one.
My private address.
"I sent three emails and left two voicemails with your home office."
I closed my eyes.
"What did Isabella tell you?"
Dana hesitated.
"I need to be careful."
"Please."
"She said there were rules at home she was afraid to break."
"What rules?"
"She wouldn't say."
Dana continued.
"She asked me if cameras can hear thoughts."
My stomach turned.
"Anything else?"
"She said if she told you something bad, somebody would know before you got home."
Exactly what she told me.
"Why didn't the school escalate?"
Dana's voice became strained.
"Because I received a reply from your email."
I went still.
"What did it say?"
"That Isabella was in therapy for grief-related fabrication and that discussing household discipline reinforced attention-seeking behavior."
I could barely breathe.
"I never wrote that."
Silence.
"Mr. Mercer..."
"Send me the email."
It arrived within a minute.
The message looked like mine.
My signature.
My formatting.
Even a phrase I used constantly in business emails.
Let's keep this practical.
Someone had studied me.
Not just my password.
My voice.
I forwarded everything to an independent cybersecurity firm I trusted through work.
Then I asked Dana one more question.
"Did Isabella ever mention Beatriz by name?"
"Once."
"What did she say?"
Dana took a breath.
"She said, 'Beatriz says Daddy gets tired of difficult people.'"
I pressed my hand against my eyes.
I had told Beatriz that about a vendor during dinner six months earlier.
A vendor.
Not my daughter.
She had taken an adult sentence and turned it into a weapon.
"Mr. Mercer?"
"I'm here."
"Is Isabella safe right now?"
I looked through the SUV windshield toward my house.
"I'm working on that."
"That isn't an answer."
She was right.
So I told her the truth.
"I don't know."
By late afternoon, the cyber team found the first breach.
My home network had been configured to copy device logs to an outside server.
The destination was hidden behind a privacy service, but billing records linked the account to a company called Grayhaven Consulting.
I had never heard of it.
Then my attorney called.
"Grant, Grayhaven isn't random."
"What is it?"
"It received payments from the Isabella Mercer Family Trust."
I sat up.
"For what?"
"Behavioral consulting."
"Isabella doesn't have behavioral consulting."
"According to the trust records, she does."
I felt cold.
The trust had been created by Lauren's parents.
I was co-trustee with our family-office controller, Owen Price.
Routine education and medical expenses could be approved electronically.
I rarely reviewed small disbursements line by line.
I trusted Owen.
I trusted the system.
Apparently I had built my daughter's life out of things I trusted without checking.
"How much?"
My attorney went quiet.
"To Grayhaven alone?"
"Yes."
"One hundred eighty-four thousand dollars over nine months."
I almost laughed because the number was too insane to process.
Then he continued.
"Grant, that's not the biggest problem."
"What is?"
"There are six other vendors."
I stared at my house.
Inside, Beatriz was helping Isabella set the dinner table like a perfectly ordinary stepmother.
May you like
My attorney said, "I think somebody has been draining your daughter's trust."
