Chapter 7 - BOX 614
“Don’t touch anything else,” Leah said.
Dad set the key back down.
The note contained an address, a box number, and four words beneath Catherine’s warning.
Ask about Daniel Price.
I knew the name.
Adrian’s former chief financial officer.
He had left the company the previous winter after what Adrian called a personal breakdown.
“He couldn’t handle pressure,” Adrian had told our friends.
Everyone had nodded.
I had never asked Daniel.
Ruiz traced the key to a private storage facility. The rental was in Catherine’s name. When contacted, she agreed to provide access through counsel.
She didn’t call me.
I didn’t call her.
By then, I had been transferred to a quieter hospital room, with my location restricted and two people on the visitor list.
Dad.
Leah.
Rosa came only when I asked.
She brought soup in a thermos and complained about the hospital crackers until I managed my first laugh.
The laugh hurt.
It still counted.
That evening, Ruiz returned.
“We found financial records in the box.”
“Adrian’s?”
“Copies. Daniel Price appears to have made them before he left.”
“Why would Catherine have them?”
“We’re asking.”
Leah folded her arms.
“What do the records show?”
Ruiz stayed careful.
“They support parts of what Evelyn reported. We also found correspondence concerning an internal complaint.”
“From Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
Ruiz hesitated.
“He lost his position. Then several companies received letters questioning his professional conduct.”
Of course they had.
Adrian didn’t simply close doors.
He made sure people couldn’t find another one.
“Can you reach him?” I asked.
“We have.”
“Will he help?”
“He wants to know whether this is real.”
I understood the question.
When someone powerful had already punished you once, hope could look like another trap.
“Tell him I’m real.”
Ruiz’s expression softened.
“I think he knows.”
She showed us a copy of a page from the records.
My name appeared beside a company I had never heard of.
Mercer Bridge LLC.
I looked at Dad.
“That’s not yours?”
“No.”
Below it was a bank reference and a date from two years earlier.
Two years.
Before Vanessa had moved into our lives openly.
Before the stairs.
Before I started keeping evidence.
Leah looked from the page to me.
“Evelyn, when did Adrian first ask about your father’s business?”
I remembered a honeymoon breakfast.
His hand over mine.
May you like
An innocent question about my maiden name.
Suddenly, nothing about it felt innocent.
