Chapter 6 - THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
Daniel Pierce refused to tell me over the phone.
Rebecca took over.
“You will provide your location.”
“No.”
“Then this call ends.”
“Rebecca?”
She stiffened.
“You remember me.”
“I remember everybody.”
“Then you remember Henry trusted you.”
Daniel was silent.
Rebecca continued.
“And you betrayed him.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of his answer unsettled me.
No denial.
No excuse.
Just yes.
“Where are you?” I asked again.
“Baltimore.”
“Address.”
“I’ll meet you somewhere public.”
Rebecca shook her head at me.
She wrote on a legal pad:
LAW ENFORCEMENT FIRST.
I nodded.
“We’ll meet,” I said. “But not alone.”
Daniel laughed softly.
“I wouldn’t expect Henry’s daughter to be that foolish.”
I almost hated him for saying Dad’s name.
We arranged a meeting for that afternoon at a hotel restaurant.
Police investigators were notified.
Rebecca also contacted a former federal financial-crimes attorney she trusted.
By the time we arrived, I felt as if I had aged five years since breakfast.
Daniel Pierce sat in the corner.
I almost didn’t recognize him.
At Dad’s funeral, he had been broad-shouldered and polished, a silver-haired executive who always wore expensive ties.
Now he looked thin.
Older.
His hands trembled around a coffee cup.
He stood when I approached.
“Claire.”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“You don’t get to say my name like we’re friends.”
He nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Rebecca sat beside me.
Two investigators occupied another table within sight.
Daniel noticed them.
“Good,” he said.
“You expected police?”
“I hoped you’d bring them.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired.”
“Tired people take vacations.”
His mouth twisted.
“Guilty people run.”
“At least we agree on something.”
He reached beneath the table slowly.
One investigator shifted.
Daniel lifted both hands.
“Envelope.”
He placed it on the table.
Rebecca took it.
Inside were bank records.
Old emails.
A flash drive.
And a notarized statement.
“I’ve kept copies for seven years,” Daniel said.
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Against Lydia?”
“Against everyone.”
I leaned forward.
“Tell me about my father.”
Daniel looked at his coffee.
“I met Lydia through Thomas Mercer. She was ambitious. Smart. Angry at everyone who had more than she did.”
“My father?”
“She hated Henry.”
“Why?”
“Because he said no to her.”
“To what?”
“A partnership.”
Years earlier, Lydia wanted Dalton Medical to invest in a luxury senior-living development she was designing.
Dad rejected the numbers.
Lydia took it personally.
Later, when Mercer Interiors struggled, Daniel helped her create fake vendor arrangements through Dalton Medical.
“At first it was small,” he said.
“How small?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
Rebecca laughed without humor.
“That’s your definition?”
“It became millions.”
“Why did you help her?”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“Debt. Gambling. Pride.”
I didn’t care about his tragic explanation.
“What did my father discover?”
“A vendor audit.”
“When?”
“About seven months before he died.”
“And then?”
“He confronted me.”
I remembered the recordings.
“You kept stealing after that?”
“No. Henry gave me a choice. Cooperate or go directly to prosecutors.”
“Why didn’t he report you immediately?”
“Because he wanted Lydia.”
I stared at him.
“He believed she had been stealing from other companies too.”
“Was she?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then tell me what happened three days before Dad died.”
Daniel’s hands began trembling worse.
“Henry had enough evidence.”
“For police?”
“For everybody.”
“Did Lydia know?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I told her.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“You idiot.”
“I know.”
“You warned the person Henry was investigating?”
“She threatened my family.”
I almost laughed.
Everyone was terrified of Lydia.
Everyone.
And because they were afraid, they kept handing her more power.
“What did she do?”
“She met Henry.”
“Where?”
“His office.”
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
My lungs tightened.
“Were you there?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Lydia called me afterward.”
“What did she say?”
Daniel looked directly at me.
“She said Henry wouldn’t be a problem much longer.”
I felt Rachel’s hand grip mine beneath the table.
“Did she poison him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she hurt him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then stop acting like you know how he died!”
People glanced over.
I didn’t care.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“The next morning, Henry called me.”
I froze.
“He was alive?”
“For eleven minutes.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me Lydia threatened you.”
“Me?”
“She said she would fabricate evidence showing you knew about the embezzlement.”
I shook my head.
“I was twenty-five. I didn’t even work in finance.”
“She had copies of your electronic signature.”
My stomach turned.
Just like the fake prenup.
The same method.
“She threatened to put fraudulent transactions in your name,” Daniel said. “Henry was furious.”
“What else?”
“He told me he was going to authorities that afternoon.”
“But he died before lunch.”
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
“What happened between the call and his death?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were his CFO.”
“I was supposed to meet him at ten.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Lydia called me at nine-thirty and said if I walked into Dalton headquarters, she would send everything she had on me to my wife and the police.”
“So you abandoned him.”
“Yes.”
“He died alone.”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
I wanted to throw the coffee in his face.
Instead I asked the question I was afraid to ask.
“Was his heart attack natural?”
“The autopsy said yes.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what did you mean on the phone when you said you knew why he really died?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Because stress killed him even if Lydia didn’t.”
I stared at him.
“That’s your revelation?”
“No.”
He looked at Rebecca.
Then at the investigators.
“Henry had a heart condition.”
“I know.”
“He also had medication.”
“I know.”
“Lydia knew too.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Why does that matter?”
Daniel reached into the envelope.
He pulled out a photograph.
Dad’s office.
His desk.
A water glass.
A prescription bottle.
The photo had been taken by security investigators after his collapse.
“What am I looking at?”
“Read the label.”
I did.
Dad’s medication.
But Daniel pointed toward the prescription number.
Then handed me another photo.
Same bottle.
Taken a week earlier during a company insurance inventory.
Different prescription number.
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“The bottle was replaced.”
My blood went cold.
Daniel nodded.
“After Henry died, I checked his desk.”
“With what?”
“An empty bottle.”
“Empty?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
“I took it.”
Every muscle in my body tensed.
“You took evidence from my father’s death?”
“I panicked.”
“Where is it now?”
Daniel looked toward the investigators.
“In a safe-deposit box.”
Rebecca stood.
“You’re turning that over today.”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“Does Lydia know you have it?”
“I don’t think so.”
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His face turned gray.
“What?”
He showed us.
Unknown number.
A message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD TO THEM.
Below it was a photograph.
Taken through the restaurant window.
A picture of us sitting together.
Somebody was watching.
Police moved immediately.
One investigator ran outside.
Another ordered us away from the windows.
Daniel looked genuinely terrified.
“Lydia knows.”
Rebecca grabbed the envelope.
“We’re leaving.”
I stood.
My phone buzzed too.
This time the message came from Evan.
Claire, don’t go home. Mom has vanished. Tara found her passport missing.
Then another message arrived.
A photograph.
My house.
Taken from across the street.
Underneath it:
Your father should have taught you when to stop digging.
I showed Rebecca.
Her face went hard.
“This isn’t family drama anymore.”
No.
It wasn’t.
But the next message made it personal all over again.
A photograph appeared on my phone.
Evan standing outside my house.
And behind him, barely visible through the passenger window of a black car, sat Lydia.
May you like
The caption contained four words.
HE STILL CHOSE ME.
