Chapter 4 - Rebecca’s Blue Folder
By morning, Daniel had learned two things.
Vanessa could not legally bar him from Mercer Equestrian forever.
But she could cause enormous damage before anyone stopped her.
The court granted a short-term protective order requiring Daniel to stay away from Vanessa and the main residence for seventy-two hours. Because the stable was part of the same property, he could not return there either.
Ava was released from the hospital into Maria’s temporary care at Maria’s daughter’s home.
Daniel saw her for nine supervised minutes in a CPS office.
Ava reached for him immediately.
That nearly destroyed him.
He held her while a social worker watched.
Her fingers curled around the lapel of his coat.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
The social worker, Tessa Morgan, looked up.
“For what?”
“For bringing someone dangerous into her home.”
“That isn’t the same as causing what happened.”
“I hit Vanessa.”
“Yes.”
Daniel kissed Ava’s head.
“And that matters too.”
Tessa studied him.
Most wealthy men Daniel knew would have begun explaining themselves.
He didn’t.
His anger had given Vanessa a weapon.
He intended never to give her another.
After the visit, Evelyn met him at her office with a copy of Rebecca’s last estate documents.
Daniel stared at the blue folder on the conference table.
“How did you get that?”
“Your original estate-planning file was here.”
“Vanessa sent me a picture from Rebecca’s desk.”
“Then she found a duplicate.”
Daniel opened the folder.
Rebecca had signed a codicil seven months before her death.
He remembered it vaguely.
At the time, she had been weak from treatment and obsessed with making certain Daniel continued their plan to adopt.
He read.
A trust held fifteen percent of Mercer Equestrian Holdings.
Upon Rebecca’s death, those shares passed into the Rebecca Mercer Family Trust.
Daniel was trustee.
The primary beneficiary was any child whose adoption process Rebecca and Daniel had jointly initiated before her death.
Ava.
Daniel stared.
“Ava owns fifteen percent of the company?”
“Beneficially, yes. You exercise the voting rights while serving as trustee.”
“Why didn’t I know this?”
“You did.”
“I would remember fifteen percent.”
Evelyn looked at him sadly.
“Rebecca explained it in this room.”
Daniel’s throat tightened.
“When?”
“Six days after her last hospitalization.”
He remembered sitting beside Rebecca.
Morphine.
Rain.
A lawyer speaking while his wife struggled to breathe.
He remembered signing.
He had not remembered listening.
Evelyn pointed to another clause.
“If you become unable or unwilling to serve as trustee, successor control passes to Rebecca’s appointed independent trustee.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Daniel looked up.
“Vanessa gets nothing.”
“Correct.”
“Then why would she care about this trust?”
Evelyn turned several pages.
“Because somebody created a different version.”
She placed another document beside it.
Daniel recognized his signature.
Or something close to it.
An amendment dated three weeks after his marriage to Vanessa.
It replaced Evelyn as successor trustee.
With Vanessa.
Daniel stared.
“I never signed this.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“The notarization is supposedly mine.”
Daniel looked at her.
Evelyn gave him a humorless smile.
“I was in Seattle that day.”
Daniel’s pulse quickened.
“Where did you get this?”
“Vanessa’s lawyer attached it to the emergency corporate filing this morning.”
The forged amendment would allow Vanessa to gain control over Ava’s fifteen-percent block if Daniel were declared incapable of serving as trustee.
And Vanessa had spent almost a year secretly recording Daniel during his grief.
Building a picture of instability.
Preparing protective-order papers.
Positioning herself inside the company.
Daniel whispered, “She wasn’t trying to make me hit her.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“No.”
“She was trying to make me look incapable.”
“And when you hit her, you made her case much stronger.”
Daniel sank into his chair.
Vanessa had placed Ava in the bin.
Why?
To create chaos?
To provoke him?
To manufacture evidence of an unsafe household?
Evelyn’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her expression sharpened.
“When?”
She stood.
“We’ll be there.”
She ended the call.
“What?”
“The stable camera server.”
Daniel waited.
“The original hard drive is gone.”
He stared at her.
“Police seized a copy.”
“The police received the eleven-minute clip you exported.”
“Good.”
“Not good enough. Vanessa’s attorney is claiming the clip was manipulated by you during the confrontation.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“That’s insane.”
“It may fail. But the original server would establish chain of custody much more cleanly.”
“Maria saw it.”
“Yes.”
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
A voicemail notification.
Unknown caller.
He played it on speaker.
At first there was only breathing.
Then a man’s voice.
“Stop looking at the trust.”
Daniel glanced at Evelyn.
The voice continued.
“Your wife made one mistake in that stable. Don’t make her second mistake become your daughter’s problem.”
The line disconnected.
Daniel replayed it.
Evelyn’s face had gone pale.
“You know that voice?”
Daniel did.
He had heard it at Christmas.
At his wedding.
In his own boardroom.
“Yes.”
He looked toward the forged trust amendment.
May you like
“It’s Vanessa’s brother.”
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