Chapter 4 - THE BOTTLE IN THE BEDROOM
Kingsley security recorded everything.
Vivian entered my house at 5:42 p.m.
She went directly upstairs.
Not to the kitchen.
Not to Ellie’s room.
Not to Grant’s office.
To my bedroom.
She opened my bathroom cabinet.
Then she placed the prescription bottle behind a row of vitamins.
Helen watched the footage twice.
“Do not touch anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“We need law enforcement or an independent forensic investigator.”
Arthur had already called both.
Vivian remained inside the house for sixteen minutes.
She entered my closet next.
Then my office.
Before leaving, she placed something inside the bottom drawer of my desk.
The camera angle did not show what.
Helen exhaled slowly.
“This may be the best mistake she has made.”
“Why?”
“Because if they planned to claim you possessed medication you weren’t prescribed, we now have video showing someone planting it.”
My hands were trembling.
Not from fear.
From rage.
I thought about every lunch I had shared with Vivian.
Every Christmas gift.
Every time she held Ellie.
Every time she called herself Nana.
A forensic team entered the house after she left.
I watched through a secure video feed.
The bottle contained clonazepam.
The prescription label was damaged.
My name did not appear anywhere.
Inside my office drawer they found a folded note.
It was handwritten.
I cannot keep doing this.
Some days I think Ellie would be better without me.
I stared at the screen.
“That isn’t my handwriting.”
Helen nodded.
“We know.”
But someone had tried to imitate it.
Poorly.
The loops in the letters were close enough to look convincing from a distance.
Arthur requested historical handwriting samples from family archives.
Within an hour, the forensic examiner gave us a preliminary assessment.
The note likely had been copied from letters I had written to my father.
My skin crawled.
“They used my letters?”
Arthur nodded.
“Possibly documents stored in the family archive.”
That meant someone had not merely studied Bluebird.
They had studied me.
Helen stood.
“We file tonight.”
“For what?”
“Emergency custody protection.”
I looked at her.
“Can we stop Grant from seeing Ellie?”
“Temporarily, perhaps.”
“He hasn’t hit her.”
“That is not the only standard.”
She pointed toward the screen.
“If we can demonstrate an organized attempt to manufacture evidence against the child’s primary caregiver in connection with a financial conflict, a judge will take that seriously.”
Arthur’s assistant entered.
“Mrs. Mercer?”
“Yes?”
“We found something else.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
Grant.
Celeste.
Vivian.
All three were sitting inside a private restaurant booth.
The date stamp was five months earlier.
Beside them sat a fourth person.
Dr. Calvin Reed.
Helen stared at it.
“There’s your psychiatrist.”
I looked at Arthur.
“How did we get this?”
“Kingsley expense audit.”
Grant had charged the dinner to a corporate development account.
The receipt listed the purpose.
Guardian transition consultation.
For a moment nobody spoke.
Then Helen quietly said, “That phrase is going to matter.”
It did.
Within four hours, we filed an emergency petition.
Grant’s attorneys responded almost immediately.
That told Helen something too.
“They were prepared.”
The hearing was scheduled for the next morning.
I spent the night with Ellie in my father’s old penthouse above the Kingsley headquarters.
She asked why we were not going home.
I told her Daddy and I were having a grown-up disagreement.
She considered that carefully.
Then she asked whether her stuffed rabbit had done anything wrong.
I nearly cried.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Did I?”
I pulled her into my arms.
“Never.”
She relaxed against me.
“Daddy mad?”
I closed my eyes.
“No matter what happens between Mommy and Daddy, you are loved.”
I could not promise anything else.
After Ellie fell asleep, Arthur joined me in the living room.
He carried another file.
“What now?”
“We traced the money.”
“What money?”
“Payments to Reed.”
I looked at him.
“Grant paid the psychiatrist?”
“Not directly.”
“Who did?”
Arthur opened the file.
“Celeste Voss.”
My stomach tightened.
“Using what account?”
He hesitated.
“A Kingsley account.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“It should be.”
“Whose authorization?”
Arthur slid a signature page across the table.
My father’s signature appeared at the bottom.
My father had been dead for six years.
May you like
Someone was not merely trying to steal Ellie’s future.
Someone had been stealing from the dead.
