Chapter 2 - THE MAN AT THE DOOR
“Put it down,” I said.
Adrian glanced at the crop as if he had forgotten what it was.
Another knock shook the door.
“Adrian Vale! Open the door and show us your hands!”
Vanessa stood.
“Just answer it. We’ll explain.”
She smoothed her dress, preparing the face she used with waiters, donors, anyone she needed to fool.
Adrian opened the door six inches.
“My wife’s having an episode.”
The officer outside looked past him.
At me.
At the floor.
At the crop in his hand.
“Drop it.”
Adrian began another sentence.
“Now.”
The crop hit the marble.
Everything happened quickly after that, although I remember it in pieces: an officer kneeling beside me, Vanessa insisting I had attacked her, the sharp sound of handcuffs closing.
Then my father appeared in the doorway.
He had flown into Dallas the previous afternoon after I told him I was ready to leave. His security chief had been waiting nearby for my scheduled check-in. When I missed it, they called police.
I hadn’t known any of that.
I had spent the evening believing I was alone.
“Evelyn.”
He knelt without touching me.
My father, Thomas Mercer, wore the same plain watch he had worn when I was a little girl. Adrian had once called it embarrassing.
Now Adrian stared at him.
“Mercer?”
Dad didn’t look away from me.
“Yes, sweetheart. I’m here.”
Adrian had spent three years chasing an investment from Mercer Holdings. He knew the company, the buildings, the money.
He had never recognized the man who avoided cameras and signed birthday cards with crooked little drawings.
“You’re Thomas Mercer?”
An officer guided Adrian toward the hallway.
Adrian dug in his heels.
“Wait. Thomas, please. You don’t understand.”
My father finally looked at him.
“I heard enough.”
Vanessa began to cry.
Not when the paramedics arrived.
Not when one of them asked me whether I could feel my feet.
She cried when an officer asked for her phone.
“This is private property.”
“So is hers,” he replied.
As the paramedics lifted me, Vanessa stepped toward the stretcher.
“Evelyn, don’t let them turn this into something it wasn’t.”
I looked at her.
“What was it?”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
At the ambulance, Dad reached for my hand.
I caught his sleeve.
“The pendant.”
“I know.”
“No.” Panic pushed through the medication and pain. “The accounts. I sent you a folder.”
“I received it.”
“Not that one.”
His expression changed.
May you like
Under the ambulance lights, I made myself finish.
“There’s another account. And my name is on it.”
