Chapter 4 - Penelope’s Baby
Rosalind wanted Penelope arrested immediately.
Detective Morales refused.
“For what?”
“She watched me drown.”
“Morally horrifying. Not automatically enough.”
“She’s having my husband’s child.”
“That may be relevant to motive. It is not proof she helped sabotage the SUV.”
Rosalind hated the law’s patience.
But Grace agreed with Morales.
“We need evidence.”
Rosalind looked toward the safe-house window.
“Then find it.”
Tobias said:
“We already have a way in.”
Rosalind turned.
“What?”
“Penelope thinks I’m dead too.”
The words hit oddly.
The river had created two presumed deaths.
Tobias’s wheelchair was recovered inside the SUV.
No bodies.
Garrett told police Tobias had probably been trapped.
Media reported both siblings missing and feared dead.
For the first time in fifteen years, Tobias Mercer was publicly dead.
He looked almost relieved.
“What happens now?” Rosalind asked.
“They stop performing for us.”
Garrett and Penelope returned to Rosalind’s waterfront estate that night.
A court-approved warrant allowed investigators to obtain exterior surveillance.
Interior evidence required more.
But Tobias had prepared before the crash.
A week earlier, suspicious of Garrett’s nightly routine, he had placed a small legal surveillance device in his own guest suite to record anyone entering his private room.
It captured Garrett and Penelope searching the room after news of the sinking.
Penelope opened Tobias’s desk.
“He kept something.”
Garrett answered:
“Then find it.”
“Rosalind?”
“She’s gone.”
Penelope stood very still.
“Say it.”
Garrett looked at her.
“What?”
“That she’s dead.”
Silence.
Then:
“She’s dead.”
Penelope exhaled.
Not grief.
Relief.
Rosalind watched the recording with both hands clenched.
Then Penelope said:
“When can we tell people about the baby?”
Garrett approached.
“Not yet.”
“I’m seven months pregnant.”
“I know.”
“You said after Rosalind was out of the way.”
Tobias paused the footage.
Nobody spoke.
Morales finally said:
“That is useful.”
Rosalind looked like she wanted to climb through the screen.
They resumed.
Penelope said:
“I did everything you asked.”
Garrett lowered his voice.
“Not everything.”
“What does that mean?”
“You still haven’t signed the voting agreement.”
Penelope looked frightened.
“I told you. My trust lawyer will notice.”
“He’ll notice when?”
“When he reviews the quarter.”
Garrett stepped closer.
“By then Mercer Shipworks will have accepted the Vale offer.”
Rosalind’s skin chilled.
Vale Maritime had made another acquisition offer?
Grace searched recent corporate filings.
A confidential board packet had been circulated that morning.
Offer price:
$286 million for sixty-one percent of Mercer Shipworks.
Rosalind almost laughed.
The company had recently been independently valued near $510 million.
“They’re stealing it.”
Grace nodded.
“Potentially.”
The planned ownership alignment became clearer.
Rosalind held thirty-four percent voting control personally and through trust.
Tobias held eighteen.
Penelope held nine.
Other family trusts and directors held the rest.
If Rosalind and Tobias died simultaneously, their estate plans mattered enormously.
Garrett expected control of Rosalind’s shares through the forged codicil.
Tobias’s shares would pass into a family trust managed temporarily by—
Rosalind looked at Tobias.
“Who?”
His face darkened.
“Penelope.”
Rosalind stared.
Their parents had named Penelope successor trustee because she was the oldest sibling.
Tobias had never updated the provision.
“If we were both dead,” Rosalind whispered, “Garrett and Penelope could control fifty-two percent.”
Grace nodded.
Enough to force the sale.
Tobias looked sick.
“I should have changed my trust years ago.”
Rosalind turned on him.
“You were too busy pretending you couldn’t walk.”
He accepted the blow.
“Yes.”
That evening, Morales obtained Penelope’s phone metadata through warrant procedures connected to the attempted murder investigation.
One message stood out.
Penelope to Garrett, sent two hours before the crash:
Are you certain both of them will be in the car?
Garrett:
Rosalind yes. Tobias probably not.
Penelope:
Better if he is.
Rosalind read it repeatedly.
Her pregnant half-sister had not merely watched.
She had wanted Tobias dead too.
Then another message.
Penelope:
I don’t want the baby born into this mess.
Garrett:
He won’t be.
Rosalind looked at Grace.
“He.”
Grace understood.
The baby was a boy.
Potentially another heir.
Then Morales entered with an update.
“We subpoenaed prenatal billing records only as relevant to identity and communications—not medical details beyond authorized scope.”
Rosalind waited.
“Garrett has been paying the bills.”
Rosalind closed her eyes.
There was no longer meaningful doubt about the affair.
But Tobias stared at the financial statement longer than everyone else.
“What?” Rosalind asked.
He pointed.
“The account.”
The prenatal payments did not come from Garrett’s personal money.
They came from Mercer Shipworks.
A corporate “executive wellness” account.
Rosalind whispered:
“He used my company to pay for his mistress’s pregnancy.”
Grace shook her head.
“Not directly. The reimbursement path goes through a consulting vendor.”
“Which vendor?”
Grace enlarged the page.
VALE STRATEGIC MARINE LLC.
Tobias’s face changed.
“That company existed before Garrett met Rosalind.”
“How long before?”
May you like
“Fifteen years.”
The same year their parents died.
