Chapter 6 - THE NAME ON THE RECORDING
The shot had entered Raymond’s shoulder.
It missed the artery by less than an inch.
Torres returned fire toward the stairwell, but whoever attacked them disappeared through a service exit before police reached the alley.
The recorder vanished during the chaos.
Daniel blamed himself.
Emily blamed everyone.
Raymond survived surgery.
But the recording was gone.
Except Emily had heard something nobody else seemed certain they had heard.
A syllable.
Maybe a name.
“Vi—”
Victor.
Or Victoria.
Or something else entirely.
Victor Sloane denied everything.
He arrived at Blackwood House that evening with two attorneys and the expression of a man insulted by the accusation.
“I worked beside Grace for seven years.”
Daniel remained standing.
“You also controlled the foundation accounts.”
“Along with Lydia.”
“You had access to my authentication systems.”
“So did Raymond.”
Emily sat near the fireplace.
Victor glanced at her.
Daniel immediately said, “Look at me.”
Victor did.
“Did you kill my wife?”
“No.”
“Did you steal from the foundation?”
“No.”
“Did you clone my authorization?”
“No.”
“Did you send Emily to that hotel?”
“No.”
Victor leaned back.
“Someone wants you looking at me.”
“Convenient.”
“Obviously.”
Victor placed a folder on the table.
“Grace was investigating somebody.”
“We know.”
“Not me.”
“Then who?”
Victor looked toward Emily.
“You should send her out.”
“No,” Emily said.
Victor sighed.
“Grace discovered payments originating from a private Blackwood family account.”
Daniel frowned.
“What account?”
“The Mercer Trust.”
He had never heard of it.
Neither had Lydia.
The trust had been created twelve years earlier.
It contained almost sixty million dollars.
The beneficiary designation was astonishing.
Grace Mercer Blackwood.
Evelyn Mercer.
And Emily.
Daniel stared.
“My wife had sixty million dollars I didn’t know about?”
Victor shook his head.
“She didn’t create it.”
“Who did?”
“The documents are sealed.”
“Unseal them.”
“I can’t.”
Daniel leaned across the table.
Victor met his eyes.
“The trustee is your father.”
Emily looked up.
Charles Blackwood had died five years earlier.
Before Grace.
Before the crash.
Before everything.
Daniel’s relationship with his father had been complicated.
Charles built the first Blackwood security company from nothing.
He had been brilliant.
Demanding.
Secretive.
Grace adored him.
Daniel never understood why.
Victor opened another page.
“Two weeks before Grace died, someone withdrew eleven million dollars from the trust.”
“Who?”
“Grace.”
Emily frowned.
“What did she do with it?”
“No one knows.”
Victor looked at Daniel.
“That was what I was investigating when she died.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your father’s trust contained a clause.”
“What clause?”
Victor slid the paper across the table.
Daniel read it.
Then read it again.
Emily stood.
“What?”
Daniel wouldn’t answer.
She took the page.
The language was complicated.
But one sentence was clear.
IF GRACE MERCER BLACKWOOD DIES UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES, ALL REMAINING ASSETS SHALL TRANSFER TO EMILY GRACE BLACKWOOD UPON HER TWELFTH BIRTHDAY.
Emily’s birthday was nine days away.
Victor spoke quietly.
“On the day Emily turns twelve, she gains control of forty-seven million dollars.”
Daniel stared at him.
Victor continued.
“And whatever Grace spent eleven million dollars hiding.”
Emily felt cold.
“So somebody wants something before my birthday.”
Victor nodded.
“Possibly.”
Daniel looked toward the windows.
Nine days.
Suddenly the mystery had a clock.
Then Emily noticed something on the trust document.
A signature.
Her grandfather’s.
And beside it, the witness.
Preston Vale.
The hotel manager.
The man who had shoved her.
Daniel looked at the name.
Then toward Emily.
Preston had said he did not know who she was.
That had been a lie.
He had witnessed a trust naming Emily Blackwood before she was even born.
May you like
Which meant when he looked down at that eleven-year-old girl in the hotel lobby, he had known exactly whose daughter she was.
And possibly exactly what he was trying to break.
