CHAPTER 6: The Woman Who Raised Her

Grant Mercer disappeared before dawn.

His office was empty, his phone abandoned, and his bank accounts drained. Celeste claimed she did not know where he had gone.

Victor did not believe her.

Neither did Elena.

The hidden camera footage showed cooperation, but not whether Celeste understood the entire plan. She insisted Grant had told her the documents protected Noah from hostile relatives after Adrian’s death.

“Did he tell you to slap me too?” Elena asked.

Celeste looked away.

“That was anger.”

“No. It was a choice.”

Rosa asked Victor for privacy and told Elena the rest of the story.

After the infant was brought to her during the storm, Rosa received instructions to move from town to town. Grant appeared twice, always polite, always threatening. He told her Victor had arranged the disappearance because a daughter would complicate the family succession.

“I believed rich people could do anything,” Rosa said. “And every payment came from a Vance company.”

Victor sat in silence.

Charles, his younger brother, had long wanted control of the estate. Under the family trust, Victor’s direct child would inherit the controlling interest. If Elena remained missing and Victor died without another child, Charles’s line would receive everything.

Adrian had inherited Charles’s ambitions but not necessarily his crimes.

Victor revealed that Adrian had confronted him shortly before the boating accident. He said he had found old records proving Charles paid private investigators to stop the search for Elena.

“Why didn’t Adrian tell me?” Celeste asked.

“Perhaps he was still gathering evidence.”

Marcus entered carrying a waterproof pouch recovered from Adrian’s boat during a new search. Inside was a damaged phone.

Technicians restored one voice memo.

Adrian’s voice filled the library.

Celeste, if anything happens to me, do not trust Mercer. My father ordered the child taken, but Mercer kept the secret alive after his death. There is another will. Victor signed it when he was ill, but I think he was drugged.

Celeste sat down.

The message continued.

The missing heir may be working inside the estate. I saw the locket in a staff photograph. I was going to tell Victor after the reception.

Elena stared at Celeste. “You knew Adrian suspected me.”

“I knew he suspected someone,” Celeste whispered. “After he died, Grant told me Adrian had become paranoid.”

The recording ended with one final sentence.

Protect the baby. Mercer believes Noah is the easiest way to control all of us.

Celeste looked down at her son.

For the first time, her fear was not about losing the estate.

It was about what the man she trusted might do next.

A message appeared on Victor’s phone from an unknown number.

COME TO THE BLUE ROOM ALONE IF YOU WANT THE ORIGINAL WILL.

Attached was a live photograph of Grant Mercer standing inside the estate.