Chapter 4 - THE DALTON PROJECT
Tara asked for a lawyer before speaking to police.
To me, she asked for ten minutes.
“Why should I give you anything?”
“Because if Mom realizes I’m talking, she’ll destroy the rest.”
“The rest of what?”
“Evidence.”
That word changed everything.
We moved to a conference room near the hotel lobby.
Security remained outside.
Evan sat at the opposite end of the table.
Tara refused to sit beside him.
Rachel stayed next to me.
The envelope Tara carried lay in front of her.
She kept one hand over it.
“Start talking,” I said.
Tara inhaled.
“Mercer Interiors is worse than Evan knows.”
Evan frowned.
“I know about the debt.”
“You know about eight point seven million.”
She looked at him.
“The real number is closer to twenty-three.”
His face emptied.
“What?”
“Mom has been moving money between companies for years.”
“What companies?”
“Shell LLCs. Property entities. Vendor accounts.”
Evan stood.
“That’s impossible.”
“You haven’t worked there in six years.”
“I still see financial statements.”
“You see the statements Mom wants you to see.”
He sat again.
Tara turned toward me.
“Your father discovered it.”
My heartbeat changed.
“What?”
“Henry Dalton found out about the Mercer debt before he died.”
“How?”
“Because Mom borrowed money from him.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“My father hated debt.”
“That’s why he documented everything.”
“How much?”
“Five million originally.”
Evan stared at his sister.
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Before I had met Evan.
Before I even knew his family existed.
Tara continued.
“Mercer Interiors had lost two major commercial contracts. Dad was sick. Mom needed cash. Henry Dalton had worked with some of her developers. She convinced him to provide a bridge loan.”
“My father would have told me.”
“Maybe he intended to.”
“He told me everything.”
Tara gave me a sad look.
“Not everything.”
I hated hearing the same implication Lydia had made upstairs.
“What happened to the loan?”
“She stopped paying.”
“That doesn’t sound like my father.”
“It wasn’t. He demanded repayment.”
“And?”
“Then he died.”
The words hung between us.
My father had suffered a heart attack in his office.
Fifty-nine years old.
No warning.
I had spent two years convincing myself there was nothing anyone could have done.
I looked at Tara.
“What are you implying?”
“I’m not saying Mom caused his death.”
“Then don’t play games.”
“I’m saying his death delayed everything. The loan papers disappeared from Dalton’s internal files. Mom believed the only surviving originals were in your father’s private estate records.”
My thoughts raced back to my suitcase.
Someone searching my trust documents.
“What does that have to do with me marrying Evan?”
Tara looked at her brother.
He seemed genuinely sick.
“Mom discovered Henry had transferred the debt claim into the Dalton Family Trust. If enforced, it could take the company, Mom’s house, almost everything.”
“Then pay the debt.”
“She can’t.”
“So instead she planned to steal from me?”
“She planned to neutralize you.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“Define neutralize.”
Tara swallowed.
“Control the person controlling the trust.”
I stared at her.
“Through Evan.”
“Yes.”
Evan slammed his palm against the table.
“No.”
Tara flinched.
“You knew she wanted you dating Claire.”
“I met Claire at a charity event.”
“Because Mom put you there.”
Silence.
He stared at her.
I felt as if the floor shifted.
“What?”
Tara closed her eyes.
“Mom knew Claire would be at the Dalton Foundation gala. She pushed Evan to attend.”
Evan looked at me.
“I didn’t know.”
“Did she tell you to talk to me?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation answered.
“Evan.”
“She said you were interesting.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Interesting.”
“I liked you.”
“But she introduced the idea.”
“Yes.”
Rachel swore quietly.
My wedding photographs suddenly rearranged themselves in my mind.
Lydia smiling beside us.
Lydia insisting on helping with everything.
Lydia encouraging us to buy a house near hers.
Lydia constantly asking what my father left me while pretending it was casual conversation.
I had thought she was nosy.
She had been collecting information.
“What was the Dalton Project?”
Tara looked at the laptop being held by security outside the glass wall.
“Mom’s name for the plan.”
“How long?”
“Almost three years.”
Three years.
Almost my entire relationship.
I stood.
I couldn’t sit.
“Was Evan part of it?”
“No.”
“Don’t protect him.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why did your email say he’d become emotionally attached and unreliable?”
Tara started crying again.
“Because he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.”
The sentence hurt in a way I hadn’t expected.
Evan looked destroyed.
Tara continued.
“At first Mom wanted him to get close enough to learn where Henry kept his loan records.”
Evan shook his head.
“She told me she wanted me to help mend things between the families.”
“Exactly.”
“What families? Claire didn’t even know there was a conflict.”
“Mom lied.”
I looked at him.
“When did you learn about the loan?”
“Six months into our relationship.”
My breath stopped.
There.
The betrayal.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“That Dad had borrowed money from Henry years ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I thought it had been resolved.”
“Did you ask?”
He looked down.
“No.”
I couldn’t look at him anymore.
Tara opened the envelope.
Inside were printed emails.
Bank statements.
A handwritten notebook page.
“Mom started panicking after your engagement,” Tara said. “She believed once you married, you would have your attorney review every old trust asset. The loan would surface.”
“So she wanted the prenup gone.”
“Yes. She wanted a replacement agreement making Evan financially tied to you. Then she intended to pressure him into negotiating the debt away.”
“Pressure him how?”
Tara looked at her brother.
“With the guarantee he signed.”
Evan’s eyes widened.
The pieces clicked.
Lydia had convinced him to guarantee her business debt.
Then she planned to use his financial exposure to control him.
Rachel leaned back.
“Your mother doesn’t have children. She has collateral.”
Tara gave a broken laugh.
“That sounds like her.”
I picked up one bank statement.
A payment of $175,000 from Mercer Interiors to a company called Northbridge Consulting.
Monthly.
Again.
Again.
“What is Northbridge?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why include this?”
“Because the owner is someone you know.”
At the bottom of the page was a name.
Daniel Pierce.
My father’s former chief financial officer.
The man who had worked beside Dad for sixteen years.
The man who had hugged me at the funeral.
The man who resigned three weeks after Dad died and moved to Florida.
“What did he do?”
Tara shook her head.
“I don’t know exactly. Mom paid him for something.”
I took a picture.
“What else?”
She slid me the handwritten page.
It was Lydia’s writing.
I had seen enough seating charts, Christmas cards and passive-aggressive notes to recognize it.
Four names.
Henry.
Pierce.
Rebecca.
Claire.
Beside my name were three words.
Marriage solves access.
I felt physically ill.
Evan reached across the table.
I pulled my hand away before he could touch me.
“Don’t.”
His eyes filled.
“Claire.”
“Not now.”
Tara covered her face.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I was scared.”
“Of your mother?”
“Yes.”
“You’re thirty years old.”
“I know.”
“Then stop acting like fear erases responsibility.”
She nodded, crying.
“You’re right.”
That surprised me.
No excuses.
No attack.
Just acceptance.
Then Tara looked through the glass wall.
Her face changed.
“Where’s Mom?”
Security officers exchanged looks.
Mr. Patel entered.
“She left the hotel approximately twenty minutes ago.”
“With what?”
“Her vehicle.”
Tara stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“No.”
“What?”
“She’ll go home.”
Evan frowned.
“Of course she’ll go home.”
“You don’t understand.”
Tara grabbed her phone.
“There’s a safe in her study.”
“What’s in it?”
“The original Mercer files.”
I grabbed my bag.
“We’re going.”
Evan stood.
“I’m coming.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
“Claire—”
“I don’t trust you.”
His face crumpled.
But I didn’t have time to comfort the man who had concealed the first lie.
Rachel drove.
Tara sat in the back.
We reached Lydia’s house twenty-five minutes later.
The front door was open.
Smoke drifted into the foyer.
“Tara!”
She ran past me.
We followed.
Smoke was pouring from the study fireplace.
Lydia stood in front of it, feeding papers into the flames.
“Stop!”
She spun around.
For once, the elegant Lydia Mercer looked truly afraid.
Tara rushed toward the fireplace.
Lydia shoved her.
Rachel screamed.
I grabbed Tara before she fell.
“Get out of my house!” Lydia shouted.
“You’re destroying evidence,” I said.
“Evidence of what?”
“You tell me.”
She laughed, but her eyes were wild.
“This is family paperwork.”
I moved toward the desk.
Lydia stepped in front of me.
“Don’t.”
That single word confirmed there was something worth finding.
I looked past her.
The safe stood open.
Mostly empty.
Except for one file.
A red folder.
I darted around the desk.
Lydia caught my arm.
“You stupid girl!”
Rachel pulled her away.
I grabbed the folder.
Lydia screamed.
Not shouted.
Screamed.
“Give me that!”
I opened it.
Inside was a copy of my father’s loan agreement.
Five million dollars.
Interest.
Security.
Signatures.
Henry Dalton.
Lydia Mercer.
And attached behind it was another document.
A letter.
Written by my father.
Dated three days before his death.
Addressed to Rebecca Shaw.
I read the first line.
Rebecca, if anything happens to me before I can confront Lydia Mercer, make certain Claire never marries into that family.
My hands began to shake.
I looked up.
Lydia had gone completely still.
Then I read the second line.
May you like
And understood why.
I have proof Daniel Pierce and Lydia have been stealing from Dalton Medical Supply for seven years.
