Chapter 8 - Fenwick Road
Police reached the Fenwick Road storage facility before Derek’s interview ended.
Derek gave Detective Harlan the unit number, access code, and the name under which it was rented.
The name was not his.
It was Thomas Mercer.
His dead father.
That alone was enough to make Harlan’s mouth tighten.
She left the room to make calls.
For the next twenty minutes, I sat across from Derek and said nothing.
He looked at the table.
Marisol reviewed notes.
The silence became its own interrogation.
Finally Derek said, “I moved the files there.”
I looked up.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Why?”
“After I sent Naomi the ledger.”
“You stole the files from Victoria?”
“Copied most of them.”
“Then what was in the garage photograph?”
“Working copies.”
“So Victoria still had files.”
“Yes.”
“How many women?”
Derek closed his eyes.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You saw the folders.”
“Some were prospects, not victims.”
The word prospects made my stomach turn.
“How many?”
“Eleven files over about nine years.”
I stared at him.
“Eleven.”
“Not all reached the same stage.”
“What stage was I?”
Derek looked at me.
“Funding.”
I almost laughed at the obscenity of it.
Not bride.
Not wife.
Funding.
“Which women lost money?”
“Naomi.”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
“Lena Brooks.”
“Possibly Claire Tan.”
“Possibly?”
“Her family intervened before the wedding, but I know Victoria had copies of her tax returns.”
“How did they get tax returns?”
“I don’t know.”
I was beginning to despise that answer.
At 7:02, Harlan returned.
“We have a problem.”
I felt my body tense automatically.
“What now?”
“The unit is empty.”
Derek stood.
“That’s impossible.”
“Sit down.”
He did.
Harlan continued.
“The lock was intact.”
“Then someone used the code.”
“Access logs show entry Sunday at 2:14 a.m.”
My wedding night.
I looked at Derek.
“Who knew the code?”
“Me.”
“Who else?”
“No one.”
“Clearly someone.”
Derek’s face had gone pale.
“I changed it last month.”
“Why?” Harlan asked.
“Because I thought Julian had been in my office.”
“What did you change it to?”
Derek hesitated.
Harlan said, “Answer.”
“My father’s birthday and the last four digits of his old business phone.”
“Could Victoria guess that?”
“Yes.”
“Could Julian?”
“Yes.”
“Could Kessler?”
“I don’t know.”
Harlan’s phone vibrated.
She read something.
“Facility cameras recorded a vehicle entering at 2:09 a.m.”
“What vehicle?”
“A white cargo van.”
“Plate?”
“Obscured.”
“Driver?”
“Hat, face mask.”
“Alone?”
Harlan looked at Derek.
“No.”
My pulse jumped.
“Who else?”
“A second person was visible briefly.”
“Man or woman?”
“Appears female.”
“Victoria?”
“Too early to say.”
Derek whispered, “She knew.”
“Knew what?” I asked.
“That I was going to turn.”
“How?”
He looked sick.
“I told someone.”
The room went still.
“Who?” Marisol asked.
Derek rubbed his forehead.
“My wife.”
I blinked.
I had met Derek’s wife, Caroline, three times.
She was quiet, elegant, and usually absent from Mercer gatherings because she worked weekends as an emergency veterinarian.
She had not attended Sunday brunch.
“Caroline knew?”
“She knew I had records.”
“Did she know where?”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell Victoria?”
“No.”
His answer came too fast.
Harlan noticed.
“How do you know?”
“Because Caroline hates my mother.”
“That is not evidence.”
Derek looked trapped.
“She would not help Victoria.”
“Could she help Julian?”
“No.”
“Could she remove the files herself?”
Derek’s eyes shifted.
“Why would she?”
“Because your family has spent years doing illegal things and you told her where evidence was hidden.”
Harlan’s tone was flat.
“People make decisions when they believe prison is approaching.”
Derek looked at me, then away.
I suddenly remembered something from the wedding.
Caroline had left the reception early.
At 11:20 p.m., she hugged me near the dance floor and said she had an emergency at the clinic.
At the time, Derek was still at the bar.
The storage unit had been entered at 2:14 a.m.
“Where was Caroline Sunday at two in the morning?” I asked.
Derek’s face closed.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she come home?”
“Not until six.”
Harlan wrote it down.
Derek’s voice hardened.
“She works emergency shifts.”
“Then her workplace can confirm it,” Harlan said.
By 8:10, the interview ended.
Harlan told Derek not to leave the county.
He gave a tired laugh.
“I wasn’t planning a vacation.”
Outside the station, Marisol stopped me before Ava and I reached the car.
“We need to discuss your annulment.”
The word sounded almost quaint after everything else.
“My fourteen-hour marriage?”
“Yes.”
“I want it over.”
“I know.”
“Today.”
“I know.”
“Then file.”
“I am.”
She hesitated.
“But Julian filed something first.”
Of course he had.
“What?”
“A petition for temporary marital relief.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“He is asking the court to preserve marital property, prevent dissipation of joint assets, and compel return of property he claims you removed from the residence.”
“The property is mine.”
“Some of it clearly is.”
“Some?”
“The wedding cash may be disputed.”
“The cashier’s check is from my parents payable only to me.”
“That is stronger.”
“What else is he claiming?”
Marisol opened an email on her phone.
“Your wedding ring.”
“I took it off.”
“He says it is a Mercer family heirloom.”
“It is not.”
“I know.”
“Anything else?”
Marisol looked at me carefully.
“The guaranty packet.”
“I do not have it.”
“He swore in an affidavit that he saw you place it in your backpack Sunday morning.”
My anger flared.
“He is lying under oath now.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Marisol’s eyebrows lifted.
“Good?”
“Every lie he formalizes becomes something we can prove.”
For the first time, she smiled slightly.
“That is the correct attitude.”
The hearing was scheduled for Thursday morning.
Two days.
By the time we returned to the hotel, the story online had grown worse.
A local gossip account had reposted Julian’s statement with the caption WEDDING WEEKEND MELTDOWN FOR WESTBRIDGE REAL ESTATE HEIR.
Someone had leaked our names.
Someone had leaked my employer.
Comments speculated that I had married Julian for money.
That made Ava laugh so hard she had to sit down.
“He has negative money,” she said.
I did not laugh.
Because the lie did not need to make sense to people who wanted entertainment.
It only needed to sound familiar.
At 9:00 p.m., my company’s general counsel called.
My employment was not in danger.
However, because my stolen work records appeared in a lending investigation, I was being placed on paid administrative leave while security reviewed access.
I understood the decision.
It still felt like another thing Julian had taken.
My work had always been the place where I knew what I was doing.
Now I could not even go there.
At 10:15, my father called.
His corporate counsel had traced the distressed marina parcel seller.
The shell company that sold it to Marquez Coastal Holdings two years earlier was connected through three layers of entities to North Meridian Fund.
I sat upright.
“The investor fund?”
“Yes.”
“Why would North Meridian sell us land?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did we underpay?”
“Not according to the appraisal we received.”
“Who ordered the appraisal?”
My father paused.
“A broker named Samuel Pike.”
I knew the name.
Samuel Pike had been at my wedding.
He was one of Victoria’s guests.
He had hugged Julian after the ceremony.
My father continued.
“Elena, I need to tell you something else.”
“What?”
“Pike approached me at the reception.”
“What did he say?”
“He congratulated me.”
“That’s not suspicious.”
“Then he said the Marquez family was about to become much more flexible with its real-estate capital.”
My chest tightened.
“Did you ask what he meant?”
“Yes.”
“He said, ‘Marriage opens doors.’”
I went cold.
Doors only matter if someone opens them.
Derek’s phrase.
The phrase on Naomi’s anonymous envelope.
Maybe it was not Derek’s phrase at all.
Maybe it belonged to the whole scheme.
I told my father to send Marisol everything he had on Pike.
At 11:07, the prepaid phone buzzed.
The anonymous sender again.
THE FENWICK FILES ARE NOT GONE.
I sat up.
WHERE ARE THEY?
The reply came instantly.
CAROLINE MOVED THEM.
My pulse accelerated.
WHY?
A long pause.
Then:
BECAUSE DEREK WAS NOT THE ONLY MERCER WHO DECIDED TO TURN.
Another message followed.
BUT CAROLINE DID NOT TAKE THEM TO THE POLICE.
She took them to the one person Victoria cannot afford to have them.
I typed, WHO?
The answer arrived.
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