Chapter 2 - The Yellow Vest
Lily spent the night at St. Catherine’s Medical Center in Denver.
She had swallowed water, bruised her shoulder against the artificial-rock channel and scraped both knees, but doctors found no serious internal injuries.
Nathan sat outside her room because she had asked for her mother’s sister, Catherine, instead.
That hurt.
He deserved it.
Through the glass, Nathan watched Catherine brush wet strands of hair away from Lily’s face.
Lily’s yellow flotation vest sat inside a clear hospital property bag on a nearby chair.
Nathan couldn’t stop looking at it.
That vest was the only reason his daughter had remained visible in the rapids long enough for Jake to reach her.
Detective Elena Ruiz sat across from Nathan in the hallway.
“Mr. Hayes, we need to discuss your assault on Mr. Mercer.”
Nathan frowned.
“Jake Mercer?”
“Yes.”
Grant Mercer was unrelated despite sharing the surname.
Nathan had known Jake only as one of Silver Pine’s seasonal aquatic supervisors.
“I’ll cooperate.”
“You struck him twice.”
“Yes.”
“Did he strike you first?”
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
“No.”
“Then understand that the fact you were emotionally distressed does not erase what happened.”
Nathan stared through the hospital glass.
“I know.”
“Mr. Mercer has a concussion and a cracked rib.”
Nathan’s eyes closed.
“I thought he threw Lily in.”
“You thought wrong.”
“I know.”
Ruiz studied him.
“Your wife was arrested tonight on suspicion of child abuse and reckless endangerment while prosecutors review whether the evidence supports more serious charges.”
Nathan looked at her.
“Attempted murder.”
“We are not there yet.”
“You saw the video.”
“I saw a deliberate shove into a dangerous attraction. Intent to kill is a separate question.”
Nathan thought about Thomas’s second video.
“And Grant?”
“We’ll interview him.”
“He was talking to her before it happened.”
“We know.”
“What did he say?”
“The audio is unclear.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
Ruiz continued.
“Do not confront him.”
Nathan gave her a bitter look.
“I’m apparently very good at confronting the wrong people.”
“That’s exactly why I’m telling you.”
A doctor opened Lily’s door.
“She wants to speak with you.”
Nathan stood so quickly his chair scraped the floor.
Inside, Lily looked tiny beneath the white hospital blanket.
Catherine remained beside her.
Nathan stopped several feet from the bed.
“Can I come closer?”
Lily nodded.
He sat.
For a while, neither spoke.
Finally Nathan said, “I’m sorry.”
Lily looked at him.
“For what?”
Too much.
Nathan struggled to choose.
“For not listening before today.”
Lily picked at the blanket.
“You never listen when Bianca says I’m lying.”
Nathan felt something collapse inside him.
“When did she say that?”
“All the time.”
Catherine’s expression hardened.
Nathan whispered, “Tell me.”
Lily looked toward her aunt.
Catherine said gently, “Only if you want.”
Lily took a breath.
“She said I broke her bracelet.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“She said you did.”
“She broke it.”
“What else?”
“She said I pushed her perfume off the table.”
Nathan remembered that incident.
A crystal bottle shattered in the master bathroom.
Bianca had cried.
Lily had insisted she wasn’t there.
Nathan made her apologize anyway.
His stomach twisted.
“What else?”
Lily’s eyes filled.
“She locked me in the linen closet.”
Nathan stopped breathing.
“When?”
“When you went to Chicago.”
“That was three months ago.”
Lily nodded.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“She said I touched Mom’s box.”
Nathan’s face changed.
Amelia’s box.
His first wife had died of ovarian cancer three years earlier.
She had left Lily a cedar keepsake chest containing letters, photographs and a small silver music box.
Bianca had always claimed she respected Amelia’s memory.
Nathan suddenly wondered whether that had been another lie.
“What did she want from the box?”
Lily swallowed.
“A blue envelope.”
Catherine looked at Nathan.
“What blue envelope?”
“I don’t know.”
Lily whispered, “Bianca said Mom hid something from Dad.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“What?”
“She kept asking where the key was.”
“What key?”
“I don’t know.”
Nathan’s pulse accelerated.
“Did you ever find the envelope?”
Lily nodded.
Nathan stared.
“Where is it?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
Lily’s fear returned.
“She said if I told you, nobody would believe me.”
Nathan forced himself not to push.
“Okay.”
Lily looked surprised.
“You don’t want to know?”
“I do.”
“Then why aren’t you asking?”
“Because you already had too many adults deciding what you had to do.”
Catherine looked at him.
Something in her expression softened.
Lily slowly reached for his hand.
Nathan almost cried.
Then she said, “Bianca knows about Mom’s company shares.”
Nathan frowned.
“What company shares?”
“Yours.”
His body went cold.
Hayes Leisure Group was the privately held hospitality company Nathan had built with Amelia.
Nathan personally owned fifty-one percent.
Outside investors held eighteen.
The remaining thirty-one percent belonged to the Amelia Hayes Trust for Lily.
Nathan had never discussed percentages with his daughter.
“How do you know that?”
“I heard Bianca talking to Mr. Grant.”
Nathan’s chest tightened.
“What did they say?”
Lily closed her eyes as if trying to remember.
“Mr. Grant said, ‘Nathan can’t sell without the thirty-one.’”
Nathan stopped moving.
Catherine whispered, “Sell what?”
Nathan knew.
For more than a year, Grant had been pushing him to sell Hayes Leisure Group to Ridgewell Capital, a private-equity infrastructure fund.
Nathan had refused.
Silver Pine had been Amelia’s first resort project.
Selling it felt like selling part of her.
Lily continued.
“Bianca said, ‘Then tell me what happens to the shares if Lily isn’t here.’”
Silence filled the room.
Nathan stared at his daughter.
Under Amelia’s trust, if Lily died before age twenty-five without descendants, the trust terminated.
The shares reverted to Nathan.
Thirty-one percent.
Giving him eighty-two percent outright.
Enough to approve a sale without the independent trust protector who currently had veto power over a major transaction involving Lily’s shares.
Nathan stood slowly.
Catherine’s face had gone pale.
“Are you telling me Bianca knew that?”
Nathan barely managed to answer.
“Yes.”
Then the hospital door opened.
Detective Ruiz entered.
Her expression was grim.
“Mr. Hayes, we just interviewed Grant Mercer.”
Nathan turned.
“And?”
“He says the conversation Thomas recorded had nothing to do with Lily.”
Nathan laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Ruiz continued.
“But we checked his phone records.”
Nathan’s anger vanished.
“What did you find?”
“Grant called Bianca eleven times in the twenty-four hours before Lily went into the rapids.”
May you like
She paused.
“And one of those calls lasted forty-seven minutes at three in the morning.”
