Chapter 2 - Lucy’s Father
Michael Dawson was presenting plans for a twenty-story residential tower when his phone vibrated for the fifth time.
He ignored it.
Then his assistant opened the conference-room door.
“Michael.”
He saw her face.
The presentation stopped mattering.
“What happened?”
“It’s about Lucy.”
Michael left the room without apologizing.
Daniel Mercer answered on the first ring.
“Mr. Dawson?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Daniel Mercer. I’m the conductor aboard the Liberty Limited. Your daughter is safe.”
Those four words made Michael’s knees weaken.
“What happened?”
“There was an incident involving Margaret Vale.”
Michael closed his eyes.
“Where?”
“Dining car.”
“What did she do?”
Daniel hesitated.
“She struck Lucy across the face.”
Michael’s hand tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“Several witnesses saw it. So did I.”
“Put Lucy on.”
A small voice came through.
“Daddy?”
Michael leaned against the wall.
“Baby, are you okay?”
“I spilled milk.”
“I don’t care about the milk.”
“Grandma got mad.”
“I know.”
“She hit me.”
His eyes burned.
“I know.”
“I said sorry.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
Silence.
Then Lucy whispered, “The train moved.”
Michael swallowed.
“I know.”
He asked where they were.
South Bend.
Michael was in Chicago.
Ninety miles away.
“I’m coming.”
Daniel returned to the phone.
“Rail police and local child-services personnel are meeting us at the station.”
“Do not let Margaret take her.”
“I cannot make a custody ruling.”
“She has a temporary guardianship order.”
Daniel’s voice changed.
“You’re her father.”
“Yes.”
“Why does her grandmother have guardianship?”
Michael hated the question because there was no short answer.
“Because Margaret convinced a judge I was a financial risk to Lucy.”
“What does that mean?”
“I made a mistake years ago.”
Daniel waited.
Michael said, “My wife was sick. My architectural firm was failing. I transferred eighty-five thousand dollars from a joint investment account to keep the business alive without telling Emily first.”
“Lucy’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“Did you steal it?”
“No. It was marital money, but I lied to my wife about using it. I repaid sixty thousand before she died.”
Daniel was silent.
“The remaining twenty-five?”
“Still part of the estate dispute.”
“And Margaret used that against you.”
“She claimed I would misuse Lucy’s inheritance.”
“Would you?”
“No.”
Michael’s answer came too quickly.
Not because it was false.
Because he hated that his past made the question legitimate.
Emily had forgiven the financial transfer before her death from ovarian cancer.
Margaret never had.
After Emily died fourteen months earlier at thirty-five, her will placed twenty-six percent of Vale Mobility Systems into a trust for Lucy.
The shares were worth tens of millions of dollars.
Margaret challenged Michael’s role as trustee.
Then she sought temporary guardianship after accusing him of hiding financial information from probate court.
Two months earlier, a judge had approved a sixty-day temporary placement with Margaret while appointing a financial examiner.
Michael still had parental rights.
He still had supervised and scheduled visitation.
But Lucy had been living in Margaret’s mansion on Chicago’s North Shore.
Michael hated every day of it.
“Mr. Dawson,” Daniel said, “there’s something else.”
“What?”
“A USB drive fell out of Margaret’s handbag.”
Michael almost stopped breathing.
“What color?”
“Red.”
He said nothing.
“It has initials engraved on it. E.V.D.”
Michael sat down on the floor of the office hallway.
“Where is it?”
“With rail police now.”
“You need to make sure Margaret doesn’t get it back.”
“Why?”
“Because Emily had a red encrypted drive.”
Daniel’s voice lowered.
“What was on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Because she hid it from everyone.”
Michael remembered the final months of Emily’s life.
Chemotherapy.
Hospital rooms.
Arguments with Margaret behind closed doors.
Emily asking strange questions about Vale Mobility’s books.
Then one night she had told Michael:
“If something happens before I finish this, there are records you need to find.”
He had thought she meant estate documents.
He was exhausted.
Terrified of losing her.
Angry because she would not stop working.
He told her they could deal with company problems later.
There had been no later.
After Emily died, Michael searched her office.
No red drive.
Margaret claimed Emily had destroyed all confidential corporate copies.
Michael had believed her.
Mostly because he had too much grief to fight another battle.
“Michael?” Daniel said.
“I’m here.”
“Do the initials match your wife?”
“Yes.”
Michael stood.
“What did Lucy say?”
“That the drive belonged to her mother. She mentioned a blue box.”
Michael felt another memory surface.
Emily had kept a blue lacquered document box in the closet of her home office.
After the funeral, it was empty.
Margaret said she had given the contents to the estate attorney.
Michael had never verified it.
He had been too busy arranging a burial and explaining death to a five-year-old.
“Don’t let Margaret leave with that drive.”
“Police have it.”
“Good.”
Daniel hesitated.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“When Lucy said her mother kept it in a blue box, Margaret became scared.”
Michael looked through the glass conference-room wall at the architectural drawings he had abandoned.
For fourteen months he had blamed his own financial mistake for losing control of everything after Emily died.
Now he wondered whether Margaret had spent those fourteen months making sure he never looked in the right direction.
He grabbed his keys.
South Bend was ninety minutes away if traffic cooperated.
His phone buzzed before he reached the elevator.
A text from Margaret.
DO NOT COME HERE.
Then another.
IF YOU USE THIS INCIDENT TO INTERFERE WITH THE GUARDIANSHIP ORDER, I WILL MAKE SURE YOU NEVER CONTROL LUCY’S TRUST.
Michael stared at the words.
Margaret had not asked whether Lucy was hurt.
She had not apologized.
May you like
She had gone straight to the money.
And that told him exactly what the real fight had always been about.
