Chapter 5 - The Last Thing Blake Came to Take
Natalie Price arrived the next afternoon carrying a cardboard banker’s box.
She was thirty-six, with straight blond hair pulled into a low ponytail and the exhausted posture of someone who had spent too many months looking over her shoulder.
Rachel had insisted on meeting at her office.
No one trusted the Vale family anymore.
Natalie placed the box on the conference table.
“I worked for Vale Development for nine years.”
Emma sat opposite her.
“What did you mean when you said I wasn’t the first?”
Natalie looked at me, then Rachel.
“Is everything I say protected?”
Rachel answered carefully.
“You aren’t my client. But if you have information related to the criminal investigation, we can arrange for you to speak with authorities and your own attorney.”
“I already did.”
Emma straightened.
“When?”
“This morning.”
Natalie opened the box.
Inside were printed emails, financial reports, internal memos, and photographs.
“I left Vale Development six months ago. Richard told people I was fired for stealing.”
“Did you?” Emma asked.
“No.”
Natalie gave a humorless smile.
“I refused to destroy documents.”
She pulled out a photograph.
A woman stood beside Blake at a charity gala.
Dark hair.
Red dress.
Blake looked younger.
“Her name is Caroline Webb.”
Emma stared.
“They dated?”
“For almost two years.”
“What happened?”
“Caroline’s father owned thirty-two acres near a planned Vale project in Virginia.”
Emma’s face drained.
“No.”
Natalie nodded.
“Richard wanted the land. Blake dated Caroline. Eventually he proposed.”
I watched my daughter absorb the pattern.
“What happened to her?”
“She discovered emails.”
“Before the wedding?”
“Three months before.”
“What did she do?”
“She ended the engagement. Her father refused to sell.”
Emma looked at the photograph for a long time.
“And then Blake met me.”
“Eight months later.”
Emma turned toward me.
“You knew?”
“No.”
I hated that she even needed to ask.
Natalie removed another document.
“Richard became more careful after Caroline. He stopped putting certain instructions in company email.”
“But not careful enough,” Rachel said.
“No.”
Natalie slid over copies of messages.
Most were between Richard and Blake.
The language was coded but obvious.
E.M. responding well to family environment.
Grant still emotional about orchard.
Marriage strengthens leverage.
One sentence made my stomach tighten.
Once she sees Richard as the father she should have had, Mercer becomes the obstacle instead of us.
Emma read it.
Then read it again.
Her breathing became shallow.
“They planned that too.”
Natalie nodded.
“What?”
“The relationship between you and your father.”
Emma pushed her chair back.
“No.”
“Emma—” I began.
She stood.
“No. I need a minute.”
She walked toward the window.
The city below moved normally.
Cars stopped at lights.
People walked with coffee.
Somewhere, somebody was having an ordinary day.
Emma pressed both hands against the glass.
Richard had studied her.
He learned that she sometimes resented growing up without the wealth her classmates had.
He learned she felt embarrassed by my refusal to display money.
He learned she carried grief about her mother that she rarely discussed.
Then he offered an alternative family.
Private clubs.
Luxury vacations.
Holiday weekends at resorts.
A father-in-law who told her she was “too special for ordinary people.”
I had thought Richard was arrogant.
I hadn’t understood he was strategic.
Natalie continued.
“Richard knew exactly what he was doing. Blake did too.”
Emma turned.
“Did Blake ever love me?”
Natalie looked uncomfortable.
“I can’t answer that.”
“You knew him for nine years.”
“That still doesn’t mean I know what he felt.”
“Did he talk about me?”
Natalie hesitated.
Emma noticed.
“Please.”
Natalie opened another folder.
“These are notes from development meetings.”
One handwritten sentence appeared beside Emma’s initials.
She wants approval. Use that.
Emma sat down slowly.
Her eyes were dry now.
Sometimes grief becomes too heavy for tears.
I wanted to reach across the table.
I didn’t.
This was something she had to face without me absorbing the impact.
Natalie looked at me.
“Mr. Mercer, I owe you an apology too.”
“For what?”
“I saw this developing.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of Richard?”
“Yes.”
That answer told me enough.
Richard Vale wasn’t a gangster.
He didn’t need to be.
Money could intimidate quietly.
Employment contracts.
Lawsuits.
References.
Mortgages.
Careers.
Natalie had two children.
Richard knew that.
“I understand,” I said.
Emma looked at me sharply.
“How can you understand her?”
“Because fear makes people compromise.”
Her face tightened.
She knew I wasn’t only talking about Natalie.
Rachel interrupted.
“We should focus on what can be proved.”
That became the next three hours.
Vale Development had established Hawthorne Residential Partners before Blake proposed.
Internal forecasts assumed control of the orchard despite my repeated refusals.
A consultant had copied my signature from publicly filed corporate documents.
Payments went through two intermediaries.
The $180,000 wasn’t purchase money.
It was a temporary financing fee paid by an investor who believed Vale Development already controlled the orchard.
Richard had represented the forged purchase agreement as legitimate.
That meant the scheme extended beyond attempted theft from me.
He had also misled investors.
Potential wire fraud.
Bank fraud.
Conspiracy.
The list grew.
By sunset, even Rachel looked tired.
Emma sat beside me in the parking garage afterward.
“You should hate me.”
“I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my daughter.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
She stared toward the windshield.
“I stood in front of everyone and said I wished I’d had another father.”
“Yes.”
“I hugged the man who was trying to steal from you.”
“Yes.”
“I laughed at you.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“Could you stop agreeing?”
“No.”
A small laugh escaped her.
Then tears followed.
“I’m sorry.”
I waited.
“I’m sorry isn’t enough,” she said quickly.
“No.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
That was the first apology she gave me that mattered.
Not because the words were perfect.
Because she understood words were only the beginning.
We drove to Hawthorne Orchard.
Emma hadn’t been there in four years.
The rain had passed.
Apple trees stretched across the slope.
The old farmhouse stood near the eastern fence.
Laura’s father built the barn in 1978.
I unlocked it.
Emma entered slowly.
Dust moved through the late afternoon light.
She walked toward the center support beam.
The carvings were still there.
Laura Mercer, age 12.
A crooked heart.
Then another name underneath.
Emma, age 8.
She touched it.
“I forgot this.”
“I know.”
She turned.
“Why didn’t you remind me?”
“I tried.”
“No. You said the orchard was sentimental. You never brought me here.”
“I asked you to come every fall.”
“I always said I was busy.”
“Yes.”
She looked back at the carving.
“I thought you were holding on because you couldn’t move on from Mom.”
“Partly.”
She nodded.
“What else?”
I opened a side door.
Beyond it was a smaller field.
Near the far edge stood a row of young trees.
Emma stared.
“What are those?”
“Twenty-six apple trees.”
“Why twenty-six?”
“One for every year you’ve been alive.”
Her face collapsed.
I looked at the floor.
“I planted the first one with your mother.”
Emma stopped breathing.
“She planted one?”
“The year you were born.”
I pointed toward the oldest tree.
“When Laura got sick, she made me promise I’d plant one every birthday.”
Emma covered her mouth.
“You never told me.”
“She wanted it to be yours someday.”
Emma walked outside.
She went to the first tree and pressed her palm against the trunk.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered, “I almost let them bulldoze this.”
“Yes.”
She began crying.
Not loudly.
No dramatic collapse.
Just tears she didn’t wipe away.
“I don’t deserve it.”
“That’s not your decision yet.”
She turned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Hawthorne Orchard isn’t automatically becoming yours anymore.”
The words hurt her.
I saw it.
But she nodded.
“I understand.”
“I changed my estate plan.”
“When?”
“Before the wedding.”
She looked back toward the trees.
“Who gets it?”
“I haven’t decided.”
That was true.
The old plan had transferred the property entirely to Emma.
The new one placed it in trust until I decided what would protect it best.
Emma nodded.
“I think that’s fair.”
The answer surprised me.
Six months earlier she would have screamed.
Progress sometimes sounds very quiet.
We returned to the farmhouse.
My phone rang.
Detective Ortega.
“Grant, we’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
“Blake disappeared.”
I stopped walking.
“When?”
“His attorney says he hasn’t heard from him since this morning.”
Emma overheard.
She went pale.
Ortega continued.
“We checked his apartment. Most of his clothing is still there.”
“What about his passport?”
“Gone.”
I looked toward Emma.
“Do you think he left the country?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Ortega said something worse.
“One of the company vehicles is missing too.”
“What vehicle?”
“A black Range Rover registered to Vale Development.”
Emma suddenly stood.
“Dad.”
“What?”
She was looking toward the orchard road.
Headlights had appeared beyond the gate.
A black SUV was turning onto the property.
May you like
Emma whispered, “That’s Blake’s car.”
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