Chapter 4 - What Emily Heard Through the Door
Emily refused breakfast.
Daniel found her beneath the dining table with her favorite stuffed rabbit.
“Can I come under?”
She shrugged.
He crawled beside her in his dress shirt.
“You look silly,” she said.
“Good.”
For the first time since the wedding, she almost smiled.
Then Daniel asked, “Did Rebecca talk to you about Bellweather before yesterday?”
Emily’s fingers tightened around the rabbit.
“She called it the mountain school.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That kids who make families unhappy go there.”
Daniel closed his eyes briefly.
“Did she say you made us unhappy?”
Emily nodded.
“Because I talk about Mommy.”
Claire Mercer had died from complications of cancer three years earlier.
Emily had been four.
Daniel had worked hard to keep Claire present in photographs, stories, birthdays.
Yet over the last year Emily had mentioned her mother less.
Daniel had assumed that was healing.
Now he wondered whether someone had taught her silence.
“Rebecca told you not to talk about Mom?”
“She said you wanted a new family.”
His throat tightened.
“Emily, look at me.”
She did.
“I have never wanted a family without you.”
“Even if you get married?”
“Even then.”
She studied his face.
“What if your wife doesn’t like me?”
“Then she does not get to become my wife.”
Emily looked down.
The answer seemed to settle somewhere inside her.
Daniel waited before asking the next question.
“You told me Rebecca said Uncle Caleb would fix everything.”
Emily nodded.
“What did you hear?”
“They talked in your office.”
“When?”
“A lot.”
Daniel felt cold.
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anything you remember.”
Emily frowned in concentration.
“Rebecca said, ‘After the ceremony he’ll be on the plane.’”
Daniel did not move.
“And Caleb said?”
“Something about a vote.”
“Anything else?”
Emily hugged the rabbit.
“She said, ‘What if Emily tells him?’”
Daniel’s heartbeat changed.
“What would you tell me?”
She looked frightened.
“I saw them.”
“Who?”
“Rebecca and Uncle Caleb.”
“Doing what?”
Emily whispered, “Kissing.”
Daniel looked away.
He had asked Nora not to turn suspicion into fact.
His daughter had just changed the equation.
“When?”
“In your office.”
“How long ago?”
“Before Christmas.”
Seven months.
Rebecca and Daniel had become engaged ten months earlier.
Caleb had toasted them at the engagement party.
Daniel felt humiliation burn through him.
But he forced himself back to Emily.
“Did they know you saw?”
“Rebecca did.”
“What happened?”
“She grabbed me.”
Daniel’s head snapped around.
“Where?”
“My shoulder.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“A little.”
“What did she say?”
“If I told you, she’d say I was lying because I didn’t want you to marry her.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Emily’s so-called behavioral problems had begun around Christmas.
Nightmares.
Bed-wetting after months without accidents.
School anxiety.
Rebecca had presented each symptom as proof Emily needed firmer discipline.
Daniel had believed the interpretation.
Not entirely.
But enough.
His phone rang.
Maya.
“We have the foundation records.”
Daniel crawled from beneath the table.
Emily caught his sleeve.
“You’re coming back?”
He immediately sat again.
“Yes.”
The question hurt.
He had spent years answering work calls with, “Give me a minute.”
Emily had apparently learned that “a minute” could mean hours.
Daniel silenced the phone.
“I’m here.”
Later, after leaving Emily with Nora and a child therapist recommended by Maya, Daniel met the forensic accountant.
The ninety-six-thousand-dollar Bellweather payment was only the beginning.
Over eighteen months, the Mercer Family Foundation had transferred $1.8 million to an organization called Harbor Light Youth Services.
Harbor Light owned Bellweather.
Daniel stared at the spreadsheet.
“What programs did we fund?”
The accountant shook his head.
“We cannot verify most of them.”
Caleb had approved seven transfers.
Rebecca had submitted five funding recommendations while serving as an unpaid foundation advisory-board member.
Daniel asked, “Who owns Harbor Light?”
“It’s a nonprofit.”
“Who controls it?”
The accountant turned the page.
Its executive director was Marcus Hale.
Daniel recognized the name.
The psychologist whose letter claimed Emily required residential treatment.
Maya looked up.
“The doctor who evaluated a child he never met is also running the organization receiving money from your foundation.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Find everything.”
That evening Maya received another call.
Bellweather had finally provided its intake history.
Emily’s application had not been created the week of the wedding.
It had been opened five months earlier.
In January.
Only weeks after Emily saw Rebecca kissing Caleb.
And attached to the original intake file was a voice recording of a woman identifying herself as Emily’s future stepmother.
Rebecca.
She told Bellweather that Daniel was “emotionally incapable of making difficult decisions about his daughter.”
May you like
The plan to remove Emily had not been an impulsive act.
Rebecca had been preparing it for nearly half a year.
