Chapter 5 - THE FIRST LIE
Evie did not remember crossing the room.
One moment Sebastian stood by the door, and the next she was inches from him, staring into the face of the man who had just claimed he came to protect her.
“My mother died because everyone thought she was unstable.”
“I know.”
“You helped them think that.”
“Yes.”
Daniel laughed bitterly from behind the officer.
“There he is.”
Sebastian turned on him.
“Be quiet.”
“No, Dad.”
Daniel's voice grew louder.
“You don't get to act shocked that I learned from you.”
Evie felt nauseated.
The argument between father and son suddenly sounded like a confession written across generations.
Sebastian asked the officers for privacy with Evie.
She refused.
“If you tell me anything, you tell it in front of witnesses.”
Sebastian nodded.
He sat down slowly.
“Your mother, Claire Mercer, discovered fraudulent payments inside Cross-Mercer Group twenty-two years ago.”
Evie's throat tightened at the sound of her mother's name.
“She believed one of our senior executives was moving money through shell companies.”
“Who?”
“Graham Blake.”
Lauren made a small sound.
Evie turned toward her.
Lauren's father had served as Cross-Mercer's chief financial officer until his death five years earlier.
Sebastian continued.
“Claire had records.”
“Then why didn't she go to police?”
“She tried.”
Evie's hands went cold.
“What happened?”
“Graham convinced the board that Claire was obsessed with conspiracy theories.”
“And you helped him.”
“I signed a statement saying she had been emotionally unstable during negotiations.”
“Was she?”
Sebastian looked down.
“No.”
The simple answer hurt more than a complicated excuse.
“Why?”
“Because Graham had evidence that could have destroyed the company.”
“What evidence?”
“My own wrongdoing.”
Daniel stopped smiling.
Sebastian continued.
“When I was younger, I authorized payments to foreign intermediaries I should never have trusted.”
“You protected yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother paid for it.”
“Yes.”
Evie pressed both hands against her stomach, trying to stay anchored in her own body.
“What happened to the records she found?”
“They disappeared.”
“And then she died.”
Sebastian's silence lasted too long.
Evie stepped back.
“Was it an overdose?”
“The coroner said it was.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Sebastian's eyes lifted to hers.
“I don't know.”
The room blurred.
Evie had hated her mother for years in secret.
Not for dying, but for leaving.
She had imagined Claire choosing pills over her eight-year-old daughter.
Now there was a possibility Claire had been hunted, discredited, and abandoned by powerful men protecting themselves.
Evie turned to Daniel.
“How much did you know?”
“About your mother?”
“All of it.”
Daniel looked at Sebastian.
“Enough.”
“When?”
“Before we got married.”
Evie closed her eyes.
That was the moment something essential ended.
The affair had shattered her marriage.
This buried it.
“You knew my family had been manipulated by yours, and you married me anyway.”
Daniel's face hardened defensively.
“I loved you.”
“No.”
“I did.”
“You loved access.”
“I didn't even know the full trust structure when we met.”
“But you learned.”
His silence answered.
Lauren sank into a chair.
Her face had gone pale.
“My father was behind this?”
Sebastian looked at her.
“Your father was behind the financial scheme.”
“Did he kill Claire?”
“I said I don't know.”
Lauren laughed once, broken and furious.
“You knew this and hired me.”
“I did not punish a daughter for a father's crimes.”
“No.”
Lauren looked at Daniel.
“You just let the son repeat them.”
A detective stepped in and announced that a search team had found movement near the old east tunnel.
They believed Brennan might still be on the property.
Sebastian rose immediately.
Evie did not care about Brennan anymore.
She wanted the truth about her mother.
Then the detective added something else.
“They also found a storage room behind the tunnel wall.”
Sebastian stopped.
“What was inside?”
“Boxes.”
“What kind of boxes?”
“Old company records.”
Evie's pulse hammered.
The detective looked at her.
“One box has Claire Mercer's name on it.”
Everyone in the room froze.
Sebastian's face drained of color.
Daniel whispered a curse.
Lauren stood so quickly her chair tipped backward.
Evie stared at them.
They all knew something about that box.
Or they feared they did.
“I want to see it.”
The detective hesitated.
“The room may be part of an active crime scene.”
“Then I will stand outside the tape.”
Sebastian moved toward her.
“Evie, listen to me.”
She stepped away from him.
“No more promises.”
He stopped.
“No more protection.”
She looked from Sebastian to Daniel to Lauren.
“No more deciding what truth I can survive.”
Outside, rain had started against the high windows.
For a moment the sound reminded Evie of childhood nights when her mother used to sit on the edge of her bed and tell her stories about brave girls who found doors hidden inside castles.
Evie had always thought the doors led to treasure.
Now she understood that some doors hid evidence.
The detective led them toward the east corridor.
Halfway there, the mansion alarm sounded again.
This time it was not the security alarm.
It was fire.
A staff member ran toward them shouting.
“Smoke in the east tunnel!”
May you like
Evie broke into a run before anyone could stop her.
If Claire's box was down there, someone was trying to destroy her mother's voice for the second time.
