Chapter 5 - The Son Who Needed His Father DeadDaniel's motive was not inheritance.
Not directly.
It was prison.
Arthur had discovered that Daniel and Victoria diverted more than ninety million dollars from Mercer Development pension funds into private investment vehicles.
If Arthur reported them, Daniel faced federal charges.
Arthur planned to do exactly that.
The morning after his death.
Reddick produced messages.
Daniel:
Tomorrow cannot happen.
Reddick:
What exactly are you asking?
Daniel:
Mother understands.
Reddick claimed his role was supposed to be evidence removal.
Not murder.
He helped move the vial into my home after Arthur died.
How?
Daniel still had access.
We were married.
He entered the house while I remained at the hospital speaking with detectives.
He placed the vial inside our bathroom cabinet.
Reddick disabled one exterior camera.
Another camera caught Daniel's car anyway.
Police had originally ignored it because Daniel lived there.
That innocent fact now became evidence.
Daniel was arrested at a company apartment.
The video appeared everywhere.
My husband.
Hands behind his back.
Cameras flashing.
For a few seconds I felt satisfaction.
Then grief.
Nine years.
Nine years of birthdays.
Christmas mornings.
Arguments over toothpaste.
Vacation photographs.
Plans.
A marriage can be false in important ways without every ordinary moment becoming fake.
That was harder than hating him.
Sophie watched the arrest on television.
“Good.”
I turned it off.
“You're allowed to feel that.”
“Do you?”
“I don't know yet.”
Daniel requested to see me from jail.
Rebecca advised against it.
I went anyway.
Glass separated us.
Daniel looked smaller.
“Grace.”
I picked up the phone.
“What?”
“I didn't know Mother was actually going to kill him.”
“Reddick says otherwise.”
“He's saving himself.”
“Probably.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“I wanted Dad stopped.”
“How?”
“I thought she'd scare him.”
I almost laughed.
“You texted ‘tomorrow cannot happen.’”
“I meant the meeting.”
“You planted poison in my house.”
His face tightened.
“I panicked.”
“There is that word.”
“What?”
“Panic.”
I stared at him.
“People like you use panic to describe decisions that required planning.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I loved you.”
I felt tears.
“Maybe.”
He looked up quickly.
“You know I did.”
“That's the problem.”
“What?”
“You keep believing love reduces the meaning of what you did.”
Daniel cried.
“I never wanted you convicted.”
I stared.
“Then why frame me?”
“To create reasonable doubt long enough to control the estate.”
I almost could not process the arrogance.
“You thought I'd be arrested temporarily?”
“Yes.”
“For murder?”
“I thought Dad's medical history would complicate causation.”
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the man I married genuinely believed he could manage murder accusations like a corporate delay.
“You let me spend four months in jail.”
“I was trying to fix it.”
“How?”
Daniel looked away.
“The agreement.”
The agreement he mentioned in court.
If I signed away any claim to Arthur's estate and agreed not to challenge Mercer financial management, Daniel planned to produce evidence shifting suspicion away from me.
He had been offering to rescue me from the fire he helped start.
I stood.
Daniel grabbed the phone harder.
“Grace!”
I looked at him.
“You know what Arthur told me about you?”
His face changed.
“He said you confuse solving a problem with undoing what you did.”
Daniel stared.
I put down the phone.
The meeting ended.
Two weeks later federal prosecutors added pension fraud charges.
The Mercer empire began collapsing.
But Arthur's will still created one enormous problem.
Sophie.
She was legally entitled to control interests worth hundreds of millions.
And at eleven years old, she had suddenly become one of the richest children in America.
Everyone wanted access.
Lawyers.
Relatives.
Investment managers.
Journalists.
People Sophie had never met.
One distant cousin petitioned for guardianship.
Then another.
Victoria's brother claimed blood family should raise her.
Sophie panicked.
“Are they taking me?”
I called Rebecca.
“No.”
“Can you stop them?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Arthur already did.”
Inside his will was a guardianship nomination.
If Emily was dead and Arthur unavailable, he recommended one person.
Grace Mercer.
Me.
I stared at the page.
“He knew.”
Rebecca nodded.
“He trusted you.”
I looked toward Sophie.
“Did you know?”
She smiled faintly.
“Grandpa said you'd complain.”
“He was correct.”
“Are you going to say yes?”
I looked around the kitchen.
Daniel's kitchen.
My kitchen.
A house full of lies.
Then at an eleven-year-old girl carrying the consequences of adults who had failed her mother.
“Yes.”
May you like
Sophie ran into my arms.
For the first time since Arthur died, something in the story felt less like destruction.
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