Chapter 2 - What Daisy Saw
Penelope couldn't breathe.
The photograph trembled between her fingers.
Judge Barrett remained behind the bench, but the color had drained from her face.
"Bring that to me."
The bailiff carried the photograph forward.
Gabriel stared straight ahead.
Bianca had stopped trying to leave.
Judge Barrett studied the image.
"I have never seen this photograph."
Gabriel laughed once.
A dry, humorless sound.
"Then apparently we're all discovering things today."
"Be careful," Martin whispered.
The judge turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
Penelope couldn't read it from where she sat.
Judge Barrett could.
Her expression changed.
"What does it say?" Evelyn asked.
The judge looked at Gabriel.
"'Rosalind confirmed. Proceed after ceremony.'"
Penelope felt cold.
Judge Barrett called for a recess.
No one was permitted to approach Daisy.
Penelope remained with the child in a private witness room while courthouse personnel contacted Daisy's grandmother.
Daisy sat beside Penelope and swung her feet beneath the chair.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't need to keep saying that."
"Daddy's mad."
"Your daddy's feelings aren't your responsibility."
Daisy looked at Penelope's stomach.
"Is the baby okay?"
Penelope managed a smile.
"She's okay."
"A girl?"
Penelope nodded.
Daisy smiled for the first time.
"Can I still be her sister?"
The question nearly destroyed Penelope.
She pulled Daisy carefully against her.
"Always."
Daisy buried her face against Penelope.
After several minutes, Evelyn entered.
She closed the door.
"Things just became complicated."
"That's becoming the theme of my life."
Evelyn sat.
"The judge has disclosed that she knew Gabriel's father professionally about twenty years ago."
"Gabriel never mentioned that."
"Apparently Judge Barrett didn't recognize Gabriel when this case was assigned. His father used a different surname professionally for part of his career."
Penelope frowned.
"What does that have to do with the photograph?"
"We don't know."
"What about 417?"
Evelyn placed a notepad on the table.
"Security traced the tag format. It's likely a private storage facility."
Gabriel had hidden something.
Whatever it was, he had believed Penelope would never find it.
She looked at Daisy.
"Sweetheart, where did you find the paper?"
"In Daddy's office."
"Was it with the key?"
Daisy nodded.
"Behind the picture?"
"No."
Daisy touched her rabbit.
"Bianca dropped it."
Penelope and Evelyn exchanged a glance.
"When?"
"That night."
Daisy explained in fragments.
She had come downstairs for water.
Gabriel and Bianca were arguing.
Bianca had papers.
Gabriel told her she had been careless.
Daisy hid behind the stairs because she knew she wasn't supposed to be awake.
Then Bianca had said something Daisy didn't understand.
"What?" Evelyn asked.
Daisy concentrated.
"She said, 'Once she signs, we move everything.'"
Penelope's stomach turned.
"Everything?"
Daisy nodded.
"Then Daddy said, 'Not until the judge approves it.'"
Penelope looked at Evelyn.
Her attorney was already writing.
"And the photograph?"
"It fell out of Bianca's folder."
Daisy had picked it up after they left.
The next morning, she found the key after accidentally knocking down Penelope and Gabriel's wedding photograph.
She had hidden both objects inside her rabbit.
"Why?" Penelope asked.
Daisy looked ashamed.
"Because Daddy said nobody was supposed to know."
That was enough for a six-year-old to understand that something was wrong.
The door opened.
Judge Barrett entered with another judge, Thomas Greene.
Barrett was no longer presiding over the case.
"I have recused myself," she explained. "Judge Greene will handle all further proceedings."
Penelope nodded.
Barrett looked at Daisy.
"You did the right thing by asking an adult for help."
Daisy hugged the rabbit.
Judge Greene addressed Evelyn.
"Ms. Price, financial investigators have identified the storage facility associated with that key."
Penelope stood.
"What's inside?"
"We don't know yet."
"Can they open it?"
"The unit is leased under a corporation."
"Gabriel's?"
"No."
The judge looked at Penelope.
"Yours."
She stared.
"I don't own a corporation."
"According to state records, you do."
Evelyn stood beside her.
"What corporation?"
"PA Heritage Holdings."
Penelope shook her head.
"I've never heard of it."
"It was incorporated six years ago."
"Who filed it?"
Judge Greene hesitated.
"Your husband."
The room tilted.
Gabriel had created a company in her name.
Why?
"What does it own?"
"We're determining that."
Daisy tugged at Penelope's dress.
"Mommy Penny?"
Penelope looked down.
"Yes?"
"Daddy said the box was your fault."
Penelope crouched carefully.
"What did he mean?"
"I don't know."
"What exactly did he say?"
Daisy squeezed the rabbit.
"He told Bianca, 'If Penelope had never inherited it, none of this would've happened.'"
Penelope stopped breathing.
Inherited.
Her parents had died when she was twenty-three.
They had left her almost nothing.
At least, that's what she'd been told.
An old car.
Several boxes of photographs.
A few thousand dollars.
Gabriel had helped her settle the estate.
They had been engaged then.
She remembered signing papers.
Dozens of them.
She had trusted him.
Evelyn saw recognition.
"What?"
"My parents."
"What about them?"
"Gabriel handled their estate paperwork."
"When?"
"Seven years ago."
The same year they married.
The same year as the photograph.
Judge Barrett stepped forward.
"Penelope, what was your father's name?"
"Andrew Mercer."
Barrett froze.
For the second time that day, Penelope watched recognition move across the judge's face.
"You knew him."
Barrett slowly sat.
"Yes."
"How?"
"Your father appeared before me when I was still practicing law."
"For what?"
Barrett looked toward Greene.
He nodded.
She answered.
"A property dispute."
Penelope waited.
Barrett continued.
"Your father owned land outside Indianapolis with two business partners."
"I never knew that."
"It wasn't ordinary land."
"What was it?"
"A commercial tract near a planned logistics corridor."
Penelope felt Evelyn's hand touch her shoulder.
"What happened to it?"
Barrett's answer came quietly.
"Your father refused to sell."
"And?"
"He died six months later."
Penelope stared at her.
Her mother had died in the same accident.
A highway collision.
Police had ruled it an accident.
"What happened to the property?"
"I don't know."
Penelope knew someone who might.
Gabriel.
A knock sounded at the door.
A courthouse clerk entered carrying a newly printed document.
He handed it to Judge Greene.
Greene read it.
Then read it again.
"What?" Evelyn asked.
Greene looked at Penelope.
"PA Heritage Holdings owns the storage unit."
"We established that."
"That's not all it owns."
Penelope waited.
Judge Greene placed the document on the table.
PA Heritage Holdings.
Registered owner: Penelope Albright.
Assets connected through subsidiary entities.
Estimated combined valuation:
$18,740,000.
Penelope stared at the number.
"No."
Evelyn picked up the page.
"This has to be wrong."
Greene shook his head.
"It's preliminary."
Penelope laughed weakly.
"Eighteen million dollars is preliminary?"
Daisy watched the adults.
Penelope lowered herself into the chair.
Gabriel had spent months telling her their marriage had produced less than two million dollars in assets.
He had allowed her to surrender everything.
Worse, he had encouraged it.
Because apparently the thing she was surrendering wasn't his fortune.
It was hers.
Evelyn turned another page.
"There's a transfer pending."
"To whom?"
"A company called Shepherd Strategic Holdings."
Penelope knew the name immediately.
Bianca Shepherd.
"When?"
"Scheduled to execute upon finalization of today's marital settlement."
There it was.
The reason Bianca had laughed.
The reason Gabriel had wanted Penelope to sign quickly.
The reason they needed the judge's approval.
The divorce wasn't merely an ending.
It was a transaction.
Penelope looked at Daisy.
A six-year-old had walked into a courthouse carrying the only clues anyone needed to stop it.
Judge Greene's phone vibrated.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression hardened.
"Understood."
He ended the call.
"The storage unit has been secured."
Penelope stood.
"What's inside?"
"They haven't opened it."
"Why?"
Greene looked at the brass key.
"Because someone arrived at the facility ten minutes ago and tried to empty it."
"Who?"
Before Greene could answer, the witness-room door opened.
A deputy stepped inside.
Behind him stood Gabriel's mother.
Margaret Albright looked at Penelope.
Then at Daisy.
Then at the key on the table.
Her face collapsed.
"Oh, God."
Penelope rose.
"You know what 417 is."
Margaret didn't answer.
"You know what's inside."
The older woman began to cry.
Daisy whispered, "Grandma?"
Margaret looked at her granddaughter.
Then she said the words Gabriel had spent seven years making sure Penelope would never hear.
"That storage unit belonged to your father, Penelope."
She reached inside her coat.
"And Gabriel wasn't the first person who tried to steal it from you."
Margaret placed an old envelope on the table.
Across the front, in Penelope's father's handwriting, were four words:
May you like
FOR MY DAUGHTER, PENELOPE.
The seal had already been broken.
