Chapter 13 - The Watcher
Maria suffered a fractured wrist and a concussion.
She remembered only one detail about her attacker.
“He smelled like horses,” she told Daniel.
Daniel sat beside her hospital bed.
“That describes half the county.”
Maria smiled weakly.
“Not horses exactly. That medicine they spray for fungus.”
“Chlorhexidine?”
She shook her head.
“Something sweeter.”
Daniel thought of stable disinfectants.
Veterinary products.
Show barns.
Mercer Ridge employed eighty-three people.
Any one of them could have known the smell.
Maria’s daughter sat near the window.
“You should never have involved my mother.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You’re right.”
Maria snapped, “No, he isn’t.”
Her daughter frowned.
“Mamá—”
“I involved myself.”
Maria turned toward Daniel.
“Rebecca trusted me. I will not become scared now because someone pushed me in a garage.”
“They could do worse.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you should walk away.”
Maria lifted her bandaged wrist.
“Do you know why Vanessa hated me?”
Daniel waited.
“Because I remembered her before she became Mrs. Mercer.”
Maria had seen Vanessa flatter board members, manipulate vendors, and speak cruelly to junior employees.
Daniel had dismissed complaints as personality conflicts.
Another mistake.
Another thing he had chosen not to see.
Maria continued.
“Vanessa needs everyone to believe she belongs wherever she stands. I remembered when she had to ask permission to enter Rebecca’s office.”
Daniel thought about Vanessa’s rage toward old hierarchies.
Her resentment might explain her hunger.
It did not excuse what she had done.
The hospital door opened.
Christopher entered.
Maria stiffened.
Daniel stood.
“What are you doing here?”
Christopher held up both hands.
“I came to apologize.”
“To me?”
“To Maria.”
Maria stared at him.
Christopher stepped closer.
“Rebecca knew I was taking money. She still asked you to protect me from myself.”
Maria said nothing.
“I helped Vanessa gain influence because I wanted what Daniel had.”
He swallowed.
“I told myself I deserved it. Then every bad thing became easier to justify because I had already justified the one before.”
Maria studied him.
“That is how people become dangerous.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now.”
Christopher nodded.
Daniel watched his brother.
For the first time, Christopher looked smaller than the ambition he had carried.
Later, Detective Pike arrived with garage-camera footage.
The attacker wore a cap and mask.
But his vehicle had been captured exiting.
A Mercer Ridge veterinary truck.
Daniel stared.
“Who signed it out?”
Pike showed him the log.
Dr. Miles Holloway.
Daniel laughed in disbelief.
“No.”
Miles had been his closest friend since college.
Ava’s pediatric veterinary? No, Miles was veterinarian to horses and had lent Daniel his guesthouse.
“He gave me somewhere to live.”
Pike said, “That doesn’t clear him.”
Daniel called Miles.
No answer.
They drove to his clinic.
Empty.
His receptionist said he had left unexpectedly two hours earlier.
Evelyn searched corporate records.
Miles held no Mercer shares.
But his veterinary practice had received unusually high consulting payments from Mercer Equestrian during the past year.
Daniel stared.
“How much?”
“Four hundred eighty thousand.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“Invoices say reproductive-medicine consulting.”
“We spent maybe sixty thousand.”
Daniel felt physically sick.
One of the few people he had trusted without question.
Pike obtained a search warrant.
Inside Miles’s office, investigators found corporate invoices.
Cash withdrawal records.
And a burner phone.
Messages linked him to Martin.
Not Vanessa.
Martin had paid Miles to approve false veterinary expenses and launder company money.
Then Daniel found a message from the morning Maria was attacked.
MARTIN: They found the wall.
MILES: Then the maid matters.
MARTIN: Handle it.
Daniel closed his eyes.
Miles had not just betrayed him financially.
He had attacked Maria to protect himself.
Pike issued an alert.
By evening, Miles was arrested at a private airfield.
Daniel refused to visit him.
Instead he returned to anger-management counseling.
Reed asked, “How many people betrayed you this week?”
“Too many.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Destroy them.”
“And what will you do?”
Daniel looked at his hands.
“Tell the truth.”
When he returned to Evelyn’s office, she was waiting with worse news.
Vanessa’s attorney had filed for divorce.
Daniel almost smiled.
“Good.”
“Read the petition.”
He did.
Vanessa claimed entitlement to fifty percent of the increase in Mercer Equestrian’s value during the marriage.
“That’s ten weeks.”
“She argues the economic partnership began eighteen months before the wedding.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
Evelyn turned to the signature page of Daniel and Vanessa’s prenuptial agreement.
Daniel stared.
The initials beside a waiver clause were his.
But the page containing the separate-property schedule was missing.
“Where is the original prenup?” he asked.
Evelyn said quietly, “The copy in my vault is gone.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“Someone accessed our archive.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
May you like
The conspiracy had now reached inside his own lawyer’s office.
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