Chapter 4 - What Emma Was Told to Find
Ryan did not show the photograph to Douglas.
Not yet.
He forwarded it to Maya instead.
Her face tightened.
“Ortiz has this?”
“Yes.”
“Then let her work.”
Ryan watched Douglas through the boardroom glass.
“He met Victor after the chalet.”
“Which means one of three things.”
“He helped him run.”
“Possibly.”
“He warned him.”
“Possibly.”
“What’s the third?”
Maya looked at Ryan.
“That Victor was working for Douglas, not Celeste.”
Ryan hated how much sense it made.
Mercer Alpine Holdings had become a complicated organism over the previous decade.
Their father, Gerald Mercer, had built the first three resorts.
Ryan expanded them.
Celeste financed them.
Douglas brought institutional money.
Victor kept problems quiet.
Ryan had always thought that meant security.
Now he wondered what else Victor had been keeping quiet.
Back at the chalet, Emma sat at the kitchen island drawing mountains.
Ryan put a cup of cocoa beside her.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Am I in trouble?”
The question hurt him every time.
“No.”
He sat.
“What did Aunt Celeste tell you to do in the cellar?”
Emma colored one mountain purple.
“Clean.”
“What kind of cleaning?”
“Move boxes.”
“What boxes?”
“The old ones.”
“Did she ask you to look for anything?”
Emma stopped coloring.
Ryan waited.
Finally she whispered, “A black book.”
“What did she say was inside it?”
“She said bad stories about Grandpa.”
Gerald.
Ryan’s father had been dead five years.
“What else?”
“She said Mommy hid it because Mommy was angry.”
“Did Celeste ever tell you why your mom was angry?”
Emma nodded.
“She said Mommy wanted to take all our money.”
Ryan controlled his reaction.
“Did you believe her?”
“At first.”
“And then?”
Emma looked at him.
“I found the picture.”
Ryan reached across the island.
“Where?”
“Behind the wood.”
“In the cellar?”
She nodded.
“There’s a loose board by the little bed.”
Ryan stood.
Police had searched the visible room.
A loose board could have been missed.
He called Ortiz.
Twenty minutes later, they were back downstairs.
A forensic technician photographed every inch before touching anything.
Emma waited above.
Ryan showed Ortiz where she had described.
The technician found the loose plank.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Empty.
Ryan’s heart sank.
Then the technician shone a light deeper inside.
“There’s something.”
A folded piece of paper emerged.
Not a black book.
A child’s drawing.
Ryan recognized Emma’s early handwriting.
Three stick figures.
MOM.
EMMA.
DAD.
The mother figure stood inside a square.
The father and child stood outside it.
Across the bottom, in adult handwriting, were four words.
NOT HER FAULT. FIND SNOWCAP.
Ryan stared.
“Nora wrote that.”
Ortiz bagged it.
“What is Snowcap?”
“I don’t know.”
Mrs. Palmer, standing at the top of the cellar stairs, spoke.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
She looked terrified to be speaking.
“Snowcap Advisory.”
Ryan frowned.
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Mrs. Mercer asked me once if I knew who owned it.”
“When?”
“Before she disappeared.”
Ryan climbed the steps.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I didn’t.”
Mrs. Palmer wrung her hands.
“Then she asked whether Mr. Hale ever received mail here.”
Victor.
“What did you say?”
“Sometimes.”
Ortiz joined them.
“What kind of mail?”
“Private envelopes. Celeste told me to put them in her study.”
Ryan turned sharply.
“Celeste handled Victor’s mail?”
“Some of it.”
“Why didn’t you say this before?”
Mrs. Palmer’s face collapsed.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of what Celeste said about your son?”
She nodded.
Her son, Daniel Palmer, had worked briefly at one of Mercer Alpine’s hotels.
“What did Daniel do?”
Mrs. Palmer looked ashamed.
“He took money.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-two thousand dollars.”
Ryan stared.
“When?”
“Four years ago. Gambling. He paid most of it back.”
“Was he prosecuted?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Celeste said she would handle it.”
Ryan understood.
“She kept the evidence.”
Mrs. Palmer began crying.
“She said if I ever repeated what I saw after Mrs. Mercer disappeared, she would have Daniel charged and make sure he went to prison.”
Ortiz said quietly, “The statute and charging decision are not controlled by Celeste Mercer.”
“I know that now.”
Ryan took a breath.
“What did you see?”
Mrs. Palmer looked toward the cellar.
“January nineteenth.”
The photograph.
“I came early because there had been a storm. I thought nobody was here.”
Her voice shook.
“I heard someone coughing.”
Ryan felt his pulse in his throat.
“I went downstairs.”
She closed her eyes.
“Nora was sitting on that cot.”
Ryan’s knees weakened.
“Was she tied?”
“Her ankles weren’t. One wrist was fastened to the pipe behind the bed.”
Ortiz’s expression sharpened.
“And Victor?”
“He was upstairs.”
“What did Nora say?”
Mrs. Palmer covered her mouth.
Ryan waited.
“She said, ‘Please tell Ryan I’m alive.’”
Silence swallowed the hallway.
Ryan turned away.
For three years he had mourned a woman who had been alive less than fifty feet from the family fireplace.
Mrs. Palmer continued.
“She begged me to photograph her.”
“With the newspaper.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She said Celeste had told everyone she was dead. She wanted proof of the date.”
“What did you do with the photograph?”
“I hid it behind the cellar wall.”
“Why didn’t you take it to police?”
“I tried to leave.”
Her face tightened.
“Victor caught me.”
Ryan looked back.
“He threatened you?”
“He took my phone. Then Celeste came.”
“What did she say?”
“That Daniel would be charged with felony theft. That my house could be seized in a civil judgment. That nobody would believe a housekeeper over the Mercer family.”
Ryan’s voice broke.
“I would have believed you.”
Mrs. Palmer looked at him with terrible sadness.
“You were in Utah. Your sister told everyone not to contact you because you were having a breakdown.”
Ryan remembered those days.
Celeste had controlled his phone calls.
Handled reporters.
Spoken to police.
Protected him, he had thought.
His phone rang.
Maya.
He answered.
“Tell me you found Snowcap.”
Silence.
Then Maya said, “How did you know that name?”
Ryan looked at the words on Nora’s note.
“What did you find?”
“A vendor called Snowcap Advisory LLC received six-point-four million dollars from Mercer Alpine over twenty-eight months.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“Services?”
“Strategic consulting.”
“Who owns it?”
“That’s the interesting part.”
“Maya.”
“The registered owner is a Wyoming holding company. That company belongs to another LLC.”
“Whose?”
“Victor Hale’s.”
Ryan felt the floor shift beneath him.
“And Celeste approved the payments?”
“Every one.”
Ryan looked down the dark cellar stairs.
Six-point-four million dollars.
A imprisoned wife.
A frightened housekeeper.
A missing security chief.
Then Maya said, “Ryan, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“The night before Nora disappeared, she downloaded every Snowcap invoice in the company system.”
Ryan looked toward the empty cavity behind the wall.
“What happened to the files?”
“They were deleted from the server the next morning.”
“By whom?”
May you like
Maya paused.
“Your login.”
