Chapter 3 - The Missing Thirty-Two Percent
I did not open the door immediately.
Margaret stood in the hallway, holding the photograph against her coat.
Police had left ten minutes earlier.
Someone had broken into my apartment without stealing valuables.
Someone had called me seconds before Margaret arrived.
And that caller had warned me not to trust her.
"Claire?" Margaret said through the door. "I know you're inside."
I called Sarah.
She answered on the second ring.
"What's wrong?"
"Margaret's at my door."
"Don't let anyone in until you know why."
"Someone just called me and told me not to trust her."
Silence.
"Did you recognize the voice?"
"No."
"Call the officers back."
I did.
Margaret waited.
When the officers returned, I finally opened the door.
Her eyes dropped toward the envelope on my counter.
"You got one too."
My stomach tightened.
"Too?"
She held out her photograph.
It showed Dad with a man I didn't recognize.
The stranger was perhaps forty in the picture, wearing work clothes beside Dad at a construction site.
On the back:
SAMUEL REID — 32%.
I remembered Judge Harrison's question.
Samuel Reid.
"Who was he?"
Margaret looked at me.
"Your father's first business partner."
"Why did Vivian say she didn't know him?"
"Because acknowledging Samuel existed would raise questions she doesn't want answered."
Sarah arrived twenty minutes later.
We sat around my kitchen table while one officer remained near the front door.
Margaret told us the history my parents had hidden.
Dad hadn't founded Mercer Restoration alone.
He and Samuel Reid started the company together.
Dad handled restoration and construction.
Samuel handled financing, acquisitions, and legal negotiations.
Initially, they owned fifty percent each.
Then, after a major project nearly bankrupted them, Dad brought in Vivian.
Not as an employee.
As an investor.
"Your mother came from money," Margaret explained.
That surprised me.
Vivian always said Dad had rescued her from a struggling family.
"Her father had money," Margaret continued. "Vivian didn't have access to it permanently, but she convinced him to invest."
Shares shifted.
Peter held thirty-four percent.
Samuel thirty-two.
Vivian thirty-four.
"Then why did Dad eventually control everything?"
"Because Samuel disappeared."
I stared at her.
"What does that mean?"
"It means one day he stopped coming to work."
"Did he die?"
"No body was ever found."
Sarah leaned forward.
"When?"
"Twenty-one years ago."
The year the trust was created.
The year Dad nearly got hurt.
The year my fourth birthday became the access code for a sealed court box.
I asked Margaret what happened.
She hesitated.
"Samuel discovered financial irregularities."
"Caused by whom?"
"You already know."
"Say it."
"Vivian."
I felt strangely calm.
Maybe because some betrayals don't surprise you after enough smaller ones.
According to Margaret, Vivian had been shifting company money into outside property deals.
Samuel confronted her.
Dad initially refused to believe it.
Then he found evidence.
A week later, Samuel disappeared.
Dad panicked.
He believed someone might target his own shares next.
So he transferred his controlling interest and certain contingent rights into the trust for me.
"Why me? Why not Julian?"
Margaret's answer came quickly.
"Because Julian wasn't Peter's biological son."
Everything stopped.
I almost laughed because it sounded absurd.
Julian was four years older than me.
He looked like Dad.
He had Dad's broad shoulders.
Dad coached his baseball team.
Dad called him son.
Margaret watched me carefully.
"Peter raised Julian from infancy. He loved him completely."
"Who was his father?"
"I don't know."
"Did Julian know?"
"I don't think so."
Sarah asked, "How does that affect ownership?"
Margaret tapped Samuel's photograph.
"It might not. But Samuel's shares were never legally transferred."
Thirty-two percent.
The missing piece.
Dad's trust controlled sixty-eight because it included Peter's original share plus conditional voting rights attached to Samuel's missing interest.
But ownership of those shares remained unresolved.
"If Samuel is alive," Sarah said, "he could potentially reclaim them."
"And if he's dead?"
"They'd pass according to his estate."
I looked at Margaret.
"Did he have children?"
Her silence answered me.
"Who?"
"I don't know if I should—"
"Stop."
My voice rose for the first time.
"No more deciding what I should know."
Margaret looked ashamed.
"Samuel had a daughter."
"Name?"
"Evelyn."
My middle name.
I stood so fast the chair moved backward.
"No."
Margaret's eyes filled.
"Peter gave you the middle name because Samuel asked him to."
"Why?"
"Because Evelyn died as a baby."
Something about that explanation felt incomplete.
Before I could push further, Sarah's phone rang.
It was the forensic accountant she had hired.
She listened for nearly a minute.
Her face slowly hardened.
"Send everything securely."
She ended the call.
"What?" I asked.
"The preliminary records came through."
"From the company?"
"Yes."
Julian had been using Mercer Restoration assets as collateral for private investments.
At least three.
Possibly more.
One involved a luxury development called Harbor Point.
Total exposure: nearly eight million dollars.
My mouth went dry.
"Can he do that?"
"Not without board authorization."
"Did he have it?"
"Not according to the records."
Margaret whispered, "Vivian knew."
Sarah nodded.
"There's another issue. The loans were guaranteed using property that may legally belong to Claire's trust."
That meant Julian had pledged assets he didn't own.
If the loans defaulted, the company could collapse.
Suddenly the lawsuit made sense.
They didn't simply want my inheritance.
They needed legal control before anyone examined the books.
My mother had laughed because she believed court would remove the only person who could expose them.
Instead, Julian's lawsuit had activated the audit.
Dad's trap.
The next morning, we went to Mercer Restoration headquarters.
The receptionist looked terrified when I arrived with Sarah and a temporary court order.
Julian appeared from the executive hallway.
"What are you doing here?"
"Inspecting company records."
"This is private property."
Sarah handed him the order.
"She's the presumptive controlling beneficiary pending verification."
His face reddened.
"That's ridiculous."
"Then your attorney can challenge it."
"I already am."
"And that's why the audit exists."
He looked at me.
"You think Dad wanted you running this company?"
"No."
That caught him off guard.
"I think Dad wanted me to find out why you were willing to destroy it."
Julian moved closer.
"You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Eight million dollars."
His expression froze.
That was all I needed.
"You knew."
He lowered his voice.
"It's not what it looks like."
"That's what everyone says when it looks exactly like what it is."
He glanced at employees watching from the hallway.
"Come into my office."
"No."
"Claire."
"No more private conversations."
The silence between us was heavier than shouting.
Then Vivian arrived.
She walked through reception with her purse over one arm, perfectly composed.
"Claire, enough."
"Good morning, Mom."
"You've made your point."
"I haven't made anything yet."
"You froze the company."
"No. The judge froze transfers because documents were hidden."
"You don't understand business."
I almost smiled.
"There it is."
"What?"
"The sentence you've used my whole life whenever you wanted me to stop asking questions."
Her eyes sharpened.
"Be careful."
"Of what?"
She stepped closer.
"Of believing dead men were saints."
I felt Dad's absence like a physical wound.
"What did he do?"
Vivian looked toward Margaret, who had entered behind us.
"There she is."
Margaret remained calm.
Vivian laughed.
"Did she tell you she worked for Samuel?"
I turned.
Margaret said nothing.
My mother saw my reaction.
"Of course she didn't."
"Worked for him how?"
Vivian answered.
"She kept his books."
Sarah's expression changed.
Meaning Margaret had access to financial records.
Meaning she might know exactly where Samuel's money went.
Margaret stared at Vivian.
"You don't want to do this here."
"Oh, I think I do."
Employees had gone silent.
My mother pointed toward Margaret.
"This woman helped Samuel hide company assets. Your father discovered it. That's why Samuel ran."
Margaret shook her head.
"That's a lie."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"Then tell Claire about the account in Delaware."
Margaret's face changed.
My stomach dropped.
"What account?"
She looked at me.
"Peter knew about it."
"That isn't what I asked."
"It was a reserve account."
"Whose money?"
"Company money."
"How much?"
Margaret hesitated.
Vivian smiled.
"Three million dollars."
Even Sarah looked stunned.
Margaret quickly explained.
Samuel believed Vivian was draining operating accounts. He moved emergency reserves temporarily to prevent her from accessing them.
"Temporarily?" Vivian said. "He disappeared three days later."
"Because he was threatened."
"By whom?"
"You."
My mother's face became cold.
"Prove it."
Margaret opened her mouth.
Then the lobby doors swung open.
Two federal investigators entered.
Badges visible.
Everyone froze.
One approached Julian.
"Julian Mercer?"
Julian turned pale.
"Yes?"
"We have questions regarding Harbor Point financing and several interstate transfers."
My mother grabbed his arm.
"Do not answer without counsel."
The investigator looked at me.
"Claire Mercer?"
"Yes."
"We'll need to speak with you too."
"About what?"
"Your father's company."
He lowered his voice.
"And Samuel Reid."
Margaret whispered, "How do they know Samuel?"
The investigator heard her.
"We've known that name for years."
He looked directly at me.
"Ms. Mercer, Samuel Reid may not be missing."
I stopped breathing.
"What?"
He handed me a surveillance photograph taken only six months earlier.
An older man stood outside a bank in Boston.
The picture was grainy.
But written beneath it:
POSSIBLE REID, SAMUEL A.
"Where is he now?" I asked.
The investigator's expression tightened.
"We don't know."
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A text message.
I opened it.
One sentence.
STOP LOOKING FOR SAMUEL IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO YOUR FATHER.
Attached was a photograph.
My father was lying unconscious on the floor of his study.
The timestamp was from the night he died.
And reflected in the glass behind him was a person standing in the room.
I zoomed in.
The face became clearer.
May you like
I looked up slowly.
The person in the reflection was standing less than twenty feet away from me...
