Chapter 12: The Ghost in the Ledger
The morning sun cast a harsh, unforgiving light across the penthouse suite. Leah sat at the glass dining table, staring at a blank notepad. She hadn't slept a wink since Hayes’s call.
Mateo walked in, carrying two cups of black coffee and a tablet. He took one look at her pale face and frowned. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I got a call last night," Leah said quietly.
Mateo froze, setting the coffee down. "From who? Leah, the security on this floor is impenetrable. Your phone is supposed to be encrypted."
"It was Hayes."
Mateo swore under his breath, pulling up a chair beside her. "What did he want?"
"Ten million dollars," Leah replied, wrapping her hands around the warm coffee mug to stop them from shaking. "He said he took something else from Eleanor’s safe before we got there. Files about my mother. He claims she didn't run away because of Eleanor. She ran because she found out something terrible about Julian’s father. Something that could destroy the company."
Mateo’s dark eyes narrowed as his mind raced. "Extortion. It’s a classic move. He's desperate, cut off from Eleanor's funds, so he's swinging for the fences."
"But what if he's telling the truth?" Leah asked, looking up at him, her gray eyes pleading. "Mateo, my mother was terrified her whole life. We moved four times before I was ten. She always looked over her shoulder. If she was just hiding from a jealous fiancée, why live in absolute terror?"
Mateo sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "My dad has been on the board for thirty years. He knew your grandfather, Arthur Mercer. Arthur was... ruthless. He built the company from the ground up, and he crushed anyone who got in his way. If Claire stumbled onto one of Arthur's buried bodies, metaphorically speaking, he would have hunted her down."
"We need to find out what she knew," Leah said, standing up with sudden resolve. "Before Hayes leaks it."
"How? The only person who would know is Julian, and if Hayes is threatening to send him to prison, Julian might be implicated."
"Then we don't ask Julian," Leah said, grabbing her coat. "We ask the one person who has been quietly cleaning up the Mercer family messes for the last thirty years."
Mateo blanched. "Leah, no. You can't be serious."
An hour later, they were sitting in a sterile, stainless-steel visitation room at the federal detention center.
The heavy metal door clanked open, and Eleanor Mercer walked in. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit, her blonde hair pulled back into a severe, unstyled knot. Without her designer gowns and makeup, she looked hollowed out. But her eyes still burned with toxic venom.
She sat down across the glass partition, picking up the telephone receiver. Leah mirrored her.
"Come to gloat, little girl?" Eleanor sneered through the speaker.
"I came to make a deal," Leah said, her voice perfectly even. She wasn't going to let Eleanor see her sweat. "Hayes contacted me last night."
Eleanor’s expression flickered, just for a fraction of a second, but Leah caught it. It was fear.
"He says he has the files on my mother," Leah continued. "The real reason she ran from Arthur Mercer. Tell me what those files are, and I will have my lawyers drop the civil suit against your brother’s shell companies. Your family gets to keep their money."
Eleanor stared at her, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping her lips.
"You really are clueless," Eleanor whispered, leaning closer to the glass. "You think I was the villain of this story? I was just the monster Arthur Mercer created to guard his gold."
"What did my mother find, Eleanor?"
Eleanor’s smile was chilling. "Claire was a secretary in the archives department before Julian fell in love with her. She was smart. Too smart. She found the geological surveys for the Silver Creek mining project. The one that made the Mercers billions."
Mateo, standing behind Leah, tensed. "Silver Creek? That mine collapsed twenty-six years ago. Thirty miners died. It was ruled a tragic natural earthquake."
"It wasn't an earthquake," Eleanor hissed, her eyes locking onto Leah’s. "Arthur bypassed the safety regulations to hit the gold vein faster. The explosives destabilized the bedrock. He caused the collapse. And Claire found the original, un-doctored reports."
May you like
Leah felt the air leave her lungs. Thirty people. Her grandfather was a mass murderer.
"Arthur was going to have Claire killed to keep her quiet," Eleanor said softly. "I didn't fake her death certificate to steal Julian. I faked it to save her life. I gave her a bag of cash and told her to run, so Arthur would stop hunting her."
