Chapter 5
Jackson stared at the photograph for a long time.
“It’s fake,” he said.
Claire shook her head.
“It was taken outside my father’s house.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Jackson turned the photograph over.
A date had been printed on the back.
He had met Natalie only eighteen months earlier.
“That’s impossible.”
I studied the image more closely.
Jackson appeared younger. His hair was longer, and he wore a jacket I remembered from the year Frank died.
Then I noticed the scar.
My son had a thin scar beneath his right ear from a childhood bicycle accident.
The man in the photograph did not.
“That isn’t Jackson.”
Judith leaned closer.
“He looks exactly like him.”
Claire swallowed.
“His name is Lucas.”
The name meant nothing to Jackson.
It meant everything to me.
I sat down on the courthouse steps before my legs failed.
Frank had once had a younger brother named Daniel.
When they were twenty-two, they stopped speaking after a violent argument. Frank told me Daniel had left the country and wanted nothing to do with the family.
Years later, I heard Daniel had died.
He had left behind an infant son.
Lucas.
Jackson looked at me in disbelief.
“I have a cousin who looks like me?”
“I never met him.”
“Why didn’t Dad tell me?”
“He believed Daniel wanted his family left alone.”
Claire said Lucas had introduced himself to her father as a financial consultant.
Natalie arrived soon afterward.
Together, they gained access to accounts, changed medical records, and isolated Claire from her father.
“Where is Lucas now?” Detective Ortiz asked.
“I thought he was dead,” Claire replied. “Natalie told me he overdosed.”
Nobody believed Natalie anymore.
At Samuel’s office, we reconstructed the scheme.
Natalie chose wealthy older victims.
Dr. Lang created medical evidence of mental decline.
Grant handled intimidation and stolen property.
Lucas forged signatures and impersonated relatives when necessary.
But my family offered something larger than their previous targets.
Control of the Mercer fortune.
“How did Natalie know about the wedding transfer?” Jackson asked.
Only Frank, Samuel, my financial adviser, and I had known.
Samuel’s face changed.
“My father drafted the original trust with Frank.”
His father, Charles Pierce, had retired two years earlier.
Samuel called him.
No answer.
We drove to Charles’s home.
The front door was unlocked.
We found him in his study, conscious but weak. An empty teacup sat beside him.
Paramedics confirmed he had been sedated.
Before they carried him out, Charles gripped my wrist.
“Lucas found Daniel’s letters,” he whispered.
“What letters?”
“Frank kept them.”
At the hospital, Charles explained everything.
Daniel had not willingly left the family.
He had accused Frank of stealing his share of their first company.
Frank denied it, but their father sided with Frank and forced Daniel out.
Years later, Frank learned Daniel was living in poverty with a young son.
He secretly sent money.
Daniel returned every check.
“Frank wanted to repair the damage,” Charles said. “But Daniel died before they could meet.”
“What happened to Lucas?” I asked.
“He grew up believing Frank had destroyed his father.”
That explained hatred.
It did not excuse cruelty.
Charles admitted that Lucas had visited him six months earlier, demanding access to old trust documents.
When Charles refused, Lucas threatened him.
“He knew about Jackson’s wedding gift because he stole a copy of Frank’s estate memorandum.”
Jackson paced beside the hospital window.
“So Natalie met me because of Lucas.”
“Yes,” Charles said.
My son stopped moving.
Every tender memory he had with his wife became suspect in that moment.
I watched him struggle to breathe.
“She never loved me.”
I went to him.
He had failed me terribly, but he was still my child.
I held his face between my hands.
“What she felt does not define what you gave.”
His eyes filled.
“I gave her everything.”
“Then the shame belongs to her for turning love into a weapon.”
My phone rang.
It was Rosa.
Her voice shook.
“Mrs. Mercer, someone is inside your house.”
“Get out immediately.”
“I’m hiding in the pantry.”
I alerted Detective Ortiz while Jackson called the security company.
Through the home application, I opened the camera feeds.
A man moved through Frank’s study.
He wore Jackson’s tuxedo jacket.
For one terrifying second, I thought my son had somehow left the hospital.
Then Jackson leaned over my shoulder.
“Lucas.”
We watched him remove a panel behind Frank’s bookcase.
I had not known the compartment existed.
Lucas pulled out a metal box.
Before he could leave, police sirens approached.
He looked directly at the camera.
The resemblance to Jackson was chilling.
Then he smiled and held up a document.
Even through the screen, I recognized Frank’s signature.
Lucas lit the corner with a lighter.
“No!” I shouted uselessly.
The flame spread.
He dropped the burning paper into a wastebasket and disappeared through the terrace doors.
Smoke filled the study.
Rosa escaped safely, and firefighters arrived before the house burned.
But the study suffered heavy damage.
Police found the metal box empty.
Inside the wastebasket, investigators recovered part of the document.
Only one sentence remained readable.
Upon Evelyn’s death or incapacity, control shall pass not to Jackson, but to—
The final name had burned away.
Later that evening, a package arrived at the hospital.
Inside was a flash drive and a lock of my silver hair.
May you like
A message had been written across the box.
Your husband chose the wrong son.
