[CHAPTER 3]
For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
Lucas stood beyond the glass with his hands in his coat pockets.
From where he was, he couldn’t have heard Ryan.
But something in his face told me he knew I had heard something.
I lowered Ryan’s hand gently.
Then I walked out.
Lucas smiled.
“Any change?”
I studied him.
“No.”
The lie came easily.
That frightened me almost as much as everything else.
He glanced toward Ryan.
“Nothing at all?”
“No.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Doctors said he might be confused if he wakes.”
“Did they?”
“Brain injury. Hypothermia.”
“You seem informed.”
His smile disappeared.
“I’m worried about my brother.”
I stepped closer.
“So am I.”
Neither of us said Ryan’s name again.
Detective Ortiz found me near the elevators twenty minutes later.
I told her exactly what Ryan had whispered.
She didn’t react dramatically.
That made me trust her more.
“Could he have been trying to say something else?”
“I know my husband’s voice.”
“I’m not questioning you.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying one whispered name from a critically ill man gives me a direction. It does not give me a case.”
I nodded.
“What do you need?”
“Facts.”
She asked about Ryan and Lucas.
I explained that they had inherited Mercer Development after their father died.
Ryan owned fifty-five percent.
Lucas owned thirty.
Evelyn held the remaining fifteen.
Ryan ran operations.
Lucas handled acquisitions.
Their relationship had always been complicated.
Ryan protected him.
Too much.
Three years earlier, Lucas had made a disastrous investment.
Ryan covered the loss.
A year later, there was another problem.
Ryan fixed that too.
“What kind of problem?” Ortiz asked.
“He never told me everything.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought protecting Lucas meant protecting Evelyn.”
Ortiz wrote something down.
“And recently?”
I hesitated.
“Ryan had been sleeping badly.”
“Because of the company?”
“I think so.”
“Did he mention money?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes lifted.
“What exactly?”
I remembered a conversation from two weeks earlier.
Ryan stood in our kitchen staring at a spreadsheet on his laptop.
When I asked what was wrong, he closed it.
“Numbers don’t disappear by themselves,” he said.
At the time, I assumed he had found an accounting error.
Now the memory felt different.
“Ryan said money was missing.”
“How much?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Did he mention Lucas?”
“No.”
That was the truth.
But I remembered the way Ryan had looked toward the door before closing his laptop.
As if he didn’t want Madison hearing.
As if he didn’t want anyone hearing.
Ortiz asked whether she could search Ryan’s office at our house.
“Yes.”
Lucas appeared before she finished the sentence.
“You need a warrant.”
I stared at him.
“It’s my house.”
“And Ryan’s private business records may be there.”
Ortiz turned calmly.
“Mr. Mercer, Mrs. Mercer has authority to consent to a search of her residence.”
Lucas’s face tightened.
“I’m only protecting my brother.”
I almost said, From what?
Instead, I watched him.
He realized it.
He gave me a wounded look.
“Claire, don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Turn us against each other while Ryan is lying in there.”
“You’re doing that by yourself.”
Evelyn stepped between us.
“Enough.”
Her face was pale.
“Both of you.”
Lucas looked at his mother.
“Mom, tell her.”
“Tell her what?”
“That Ryan trusted me.”
Evelyn’s eyes filled with tears.
“I don’t know who Ryan trusted anymore.”
Lucas flinched.
That was the first time I saw real pain on his face.
But it vanished quickly.
He left the hospital.
Ortiz watched him go.
Then she looked at Evelyn.
“Mrs. Mercer, is there something you want to tell me?”
Evelyn sat down.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “Ryan came to see me four days before the crash.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
She couldn’t look at me.
“He asked me to sign temporary voting authority over my shares to him.”
“Why?”
“He said there might be fraud inside the company.”
“Did he say Lucas?”
“No.”
“But you thought he meant Lucas.”
Evelyn began crying.
“I refused.”
“Why?”
“Because Lucas is my son.”
“So is Ryan.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know.”
The words came out almost soundless.
“I know.”
Detective Ortiz asked whether Ryan had left anything with her.
Evelyn shook her head.
Then stopped.
“There was an envelope.”
“What envelope?”
“He gave it to me.”
“Where is it?”
“I burned it.”
I stared at her.
“You what?”
Evelyn looked ashamed.
“Ryan told me not to open it unless something happened to him.”
“And something happened.”
“I panicked.”
“You burned it?”
“Lucas came over that evening. He saw the envelope.”
My skin went cold.
“What did he say?”
“He asked where it came from.”
“And you told him?”
She nodded.
“I said Ryan was being dramatic. Lucas became angry.”
“How angry?”
“He said Ryan was trying to destroy the family.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“What happened next?”
“I burned the envelope in the fireplace.”
I stood so suddenly the chair scraped.
“You destroyed the one thing Ryan specifically told you to protect?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
Evelyn finally looked at me.
“Of finding out one of my sons was right about the other.”
I walked away before I said something unforgivable.
In the ICU, Ryan had not moved.
I sat beside him until midnight.
Madison was sleeping at my sister Tessa’s house.
I hated being away from her.
But I hated leaving Ryan more.
Around one in the morning, a nurse entered.
“There’s been a request to transfer your husband.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“To another facility.”
“Who requested it?”
She checked the screen.
“Mercer family authorization.”
“I’m his wife. I authorized nothing.”
Her expression changed.
“I’ll stop the transfer.”
“Who made the request?”
She hesitated.
“It came through a representative listed as family counsel.”
My heartbeat slammed.
“Name.”
“Vincent Hale.”
I knew that name.
Everyone in the Mercer family did.
Vincent had been Ryan’s father’s attorney for nearly twenty years.
He handled company trusts.
Estate documents.
Emergency directives.
And Lucas trusted him completely.
I called Detective Ortiz immediately.
She answered on the second ring.
When I told her, she went silent.
Then she said, “Do not leave your husband alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Five minutes later, the lights in the hallway flickered.
A man wearing hospital scrubs appeared at the far end.
He was pushing an empty wheelchair.
He saw me standing outside Ryan’s room.
Then he stopped.
Turned around.
And walked quickly toward the stairwell.
May you like
I shouted for security.
By the time they reached the stairs, he was gone.
