Chapter 4
Victor did not ask me about the journal until Serena was gone.
Police cars disappeared down the driveway.
Security locked every door.
Marcus reviewed camera footage with two officers.
Ethan fell asleep at last in my arms, exhausted from terror.
Only then did Victor look at me.
“Lily.”
I swallowed.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
His eyes flashed with pain.
“Why didn’t you?”
I looked down at Ethan.
“Because I was afraid of what it said.”
The anger in Victor’s face shifted.
Not gone.
Changed.
He led me to the nursery.
We placed Ethan in his crib.
He stirred, reaching blindly.
I put my hand near his.
He caught my finger and settled.
Victor watched that small movement like it wounded him.
“Show me,” he said quietly.
I opened Ethan’s closet and moved the toy storage bin.
Behind it, near the baseboard, was the loose strip of wallpaper.
I pulled it back.
The narrow space behind the panel held the journal wrapped in plastic.
Victor took one step back when he saw it.
“That’s Claire’s handwriting.”
“Yes.”
His voice broke.
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
He looked at me.
I accepted the anger.
I deserved some of it.
“I’m sorry.”
He took the journal with shaking hands.
We sat on the nursery floor because neither of us seemed able to stand.
The first page had his name.
Victor,
If you find this, it means I was right to be afraid.
Do not let Serena near Ethan.
Do not let my father’s shares move before Ethan turns five.
Do not trust Dr. Harlan Pike.
Do not trust the safe copy of my will unless Grace has verified it.
Victor stopped reading.
His face had turned gray.
“Dr. Pike handled Claire’s postpartum care.”
My stomach tightened.
“Serena mentioned him once.”
“When?”
“At breakfast. She said he was a family friend.”
“He wasn’t.”
Victor turned the page.
Claire’s entries were scattered.
Short.
Afraid.
She wrote about missing documents.
A nurse who gave her pills that made her dizzy.
Serena visiting too often while Victor was traveling.
Serena asking questions about Ethan’s trust.
Dr. Pike telling Claire she was anxious, paranoid, unstable.
One entry made Victor press his fist to his mouth.
Serena held Ethan today and said he would need a real mother if I “kept fading.” I told Victor she was cruel. He said I was exhausted and misheard her. I wanted to believe him.
Victor closed his eyes.
“I said that.”
I said nothing.
His grief filled the room.
Another entry.
If I die, it will not be because I stopped fighting.
I looked away.
Victor kept reading.
The final pages were worse.
Claire had copied bank transfers from Mercer Trust.
Payments to a consulting company owned by Serena’s brother.
Payments to Dr. Pike.
Payments to a private caregiver.
Then one note circled three times.
They are not waiting for me to die.
They are helping it happen slowly.
Victor stood abruptly and left the room.
I stayed with Ethan.
I heard glass break downstairs.
Then silence.
When Victor returned, his hand was bleeding.
This time, he let me wrap it.
Neither of us spoke until the bandage was tied.
Then he whispered, “I killed my wife.”
“No.”
“I didn’t listen.”
“That is not the same.”
“She told me Serena was dangerous.”
“You were grieving and being lied to.”
He looked at me.
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“It is not. It is the beginning of responsibility.”
His eyes filled.
“I owe her more than grief.”
“Yes.”
“And Ethan more than regret.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, he did not look like Victor Mercer, billionaire heir of the Mercer shipping fortune.
He looked like a father who had just discovered the woman he trusted had been afraid in her own home.
By morning, Victor’s attorney, Grace Bell, arrived.
Claire’s attorney.
Her closest friend.
The moment she saw the journal, she began crying.
“She told me she was hiding something,” Grace whispered. “She never told me where.”
Victor looked devastated.
“Why didn’t she give it to you?”
“She tried. The week she died, she canceled our meeting. Said she was too tired.”
He closed his eyes.
Grace read the journal.
Then she looked up.
“This changes everything.”
“What do we do?” Victor asked.
“We go to police. We lock the trust. We exhume records. We subpoena Dr. Pike. And you, Victor, stop protecting family reputation.”
He nodded.
“I don’t care about reputation.”
Grace’s voice sharpened.
“You did when Claire was alive.”
The room went silent.
Victor took the hit.
He did not defend himself.
“You’re right,” he said.
That mattered.
Not enough to heal anything.
But it mattered.
Police took the journal as evidence.
Dr. Pike’s clinic was raided that afternoon.
Serena’s brother was detained at the airport that night.
And by the next morning, Claire Mercer’s death was no longer listed as a closed medical tragedy.
It was an open investigation.
Ethan woke before sunrise.
I was sitting by his crib.
Victor stood in the doorway.
Ethan saw him and reached out.
“Da.”
Victor crossed the room fast, then stopped himself and slowed.
“Can I pick you up?”
Ethan blinked.
Then reached again.
Victor lifted him gently.
The baby rested his head against his father’s shoulder.
Victor broke.
He cried silently into Ethan’s hair.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m here now.”
Ethan patted his face.
I turned away because some moments were too tender to witness directly.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A text appeared.
You should have left the dead woman buried.
May you like
Attached was a photo of me holding Ethan in the sunroom.
Taken from inside the house.
