Chapter 2 - A House Full of Lies
Celeste laughed.
It was the wrong sound.
Too quick.
Too brittle.
“Listen to yourself, Ryan. You walk into a chaotic situation, see some papers your father collected while he was obsessed with destroying our marriage, and suddenly Noah is hiding corporate evidence inside a stuffed toy?”
Ryan did not move.
“Hand me your phone.”
Her smile vanished.
“What?”
“Your phone.”
“You don’t get to search my private messages.”
“You’re standing ten feet from the belt you used on my daughter.”
Celeste’s eyes flicked toward Emma.
“I lost my temper.”
Emma flinched.
Ryan heard those four words and felt something inside him break.
Not because Celeste admitted it.
Because of how small she made it sound.
He crouched in front of Emma.
“Let me see your back.”
She shook her head immediately.
“I’m okay.”
“You don’t have to protect me from seeing it.”
“I’m okay.”
He recognized that reflex.
Laura used to do it.
Emma’s mother had hated letting anyone worry about her, even during the cancer treatments that eventually took her life four years earlier.
Ryan had always thought Emma inherited Laura’s courage.
Now he wondered whether he had mistaken silence for strength.
“Emma,” he said, “did this happen before?”
Celeste stepped forward.
“This is insane.”
Ryan raised one hand without looking at her.
Emma lowered her eyes.
“Not like today.”
Ryan’s stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“She grabs hard sometimes.”
Celeste exploded.
“She is lying!”
Noah began to cry.
Emma instantly rocked him.
Ryan looked at his wife.
“You’re done talking to her.”
“You can’t order me around.”
“Tonight I can.”
Celeste’s face hardened.
“Because the great Ryan Mercer has arrived to save everyone?”
The words landed harder than she intended.
Ryan had been gone constantly.
New York.
Chicago.
Denver.
Meetings with lenders.
Negotiations over Mercer Alpine’s expansion.
Emma had told him twice that Celeste was “mean when you’re gone.”
He had answered that blended families needed patience.
Once, when Emma said Celeste locked her in her room for talking back, Ryan had called it a parenting disagreement.
He had trusted the adult because it was easier than confronting what the child was trying to say.
His failure stood before him in striped pajamas, holding her baby brother.
Ryan turned away from Celeste.
“Emma, take Noah into my bedroom. Lock the door.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right outside.”
She hesitated.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t believe her just because she cries.”
Celeste’s mouth opened.
Ryan stared at his daughter.
That sentence frightened him almost as much as the belt.
Emma carried Noah away.
Ryan waited until he heard the bedroom door lock.
Then he faced Celeste.
“You taught my eight-year-old daughter that.”
Celeste’s eyes became glossy.
“There. That. Exactly.”
“What?”
“You’ve already decided I’m a monster.”
“I watched you raise a belt.”
“You walked in during the worst sixty seconds of my life.”
“No. I walked in during Emma’s.”
Celeste wiped one tear from her cheek.
“You want to know about Victor?”
“Yes.”
“I was lonely.”
Ryan stared.
She continued quickly.
“You hadn’t touched me in months. You slept with your phone beside you. You took calls during dinner. Your company got everything.”
“So you slept with my COO.”
“I made a mistake.”
“How long?”
She said nothing.
“How long?”
“Eight months.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
Noah was sixteen months old.
The calculation occurred before he could stop it.
Celeste saw his face.
“Don’t you dare.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Noah is yours.”
“I know.”
“And don’t turn this into something filthy because you’re angry.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
He would not let the affair distract from the money.
“The drive.”
“I never saw it.”
“Emma says Noah picked something up.”
“She’s eight.”
“She’s also the only person in this house whose story has remained consistent.”
Celeste’s voice sharpened.
“You have always wanted Laura back.”
Ryan went still.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“It has everything to do with this. I married a widower who preserved his dead wife like a saint. Her photographs stayed up. Her furniture stayed. Her daughter could do no wrong.”
“Stop.”
“Your father compared me to her.”
“My father is dead.”
“And he is still controlling this family!”
Ryan stepped closer.
“That envelope contains evidence that millions disappeared from my company.”
“Then call your accountants.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
“And the sheriff.”
Celeste’s face changed.
Ryan noticed.
Not fear of the abuse investigation.
Something else.
“Why did that frighten you?”
“It didn’t.”
Ryan walked to the kitchen and picked up the house phone.
No signal.
The storm had knocked out the landline.
His mobile showed one weak bar, then none.
Celeste folded her arms.
“No one is reaching this chalet tonight.”
Ryan looked toward the windows.
She was right.
The private road vanished under blowing snow.
The nearest neighboring house was nearly two miles downhill.
He went to the security panel.
Satellite backup still worked intermittently for the alarm system but not voice calls.
Ryan opened the home network dashboard.
A list of connected devices appeared.
His phone.
Emma’s tablet.
The television.
Celeste’s phone.
And the shared kitchen tablet.
Celeste had left the tablet beside the pantry.
Ryan picked it up.
“Give me that.”
He looked at the screen.
A notification had appeared from an encrypted messaging application.
Victor:
DID HE OPEN HENRY’S PACKET?
Ryan looked at Celeste.
She moved toward him.
He backed away and tapped the notification.
The app demanded Celeste’s passcode.
But another preview appeared.
Victor again.
REMOVE THE TAHOE MIRROR BEFORE HE CHECKS THE SERVER.
Ryan felt the blood drain from his face.
Celeste stopped pretending.
“Ryan.”
He slowly raised his eyes.
“What is the Tahoe mirror?”
“It’s company technology. I don’t know.”
“Victor thinks you do.”
“You’re reading private messages without context.”
“He asked whether I opened my father’s packet.”
Silence.
Ryan took a photograph of the notifications with his own phone.
Then the shared tablet chimed again.
This time the message was from Victor.
HE CANNOT SEE INVOICE 47.
Ryan stared at the words.
He had spent twenty years building Mercer Alpine from the three struggling ski properties his father had left him to operate into one of the largest privately held mountain resort groups in the West.
He knew every capital project.
Every acquisition.
Every major vendor.
But he had no idea what Invoice 47 was.
He opened the corporate finance application on his phone and searched the archived payment system.
Invoice 47 appeared.
Summit Crest Maintenance LLC.
Amount: $2,100,000.
Approved eleven months earlier.
Authorization:
RYAN MERCER — CEO.
Ryan’s pulse slowed.
Eleven months ago, on the approval date, he had not been in Colorado.
He had been in Tokyo negotiating a hotel partnership.
He remembered because Emma had called him from home that night and asked why he missed her school performance.
He had told her work was complicated.
Now he stared at a transaction supposedly approved by him from his own executive credentials while he was halfway across the world.
Celeste whispered, “There could be an explanation.”
Ryan looked at her.
“There is.”
May you like
He turned the phone so she could see the screen.
“Someone used my name.”
