Chapter 9 #2
"It requires a code and a fingerprint."
"What's the code?"
"I don't know."
"Kyle."
"I really don't. Only he or Vivian can open it. But I've seen the files. The Hales. Medical reports. A trust management agreement. And..."
He stopped.
"Keep talking."
"A prenuptial agreement. Not the one you signed."
The room disappeared.
Not physically. Everything around me simply receded: the bed, the IV, Graham, the window, the rain-darkened garden. Only Kyle's voice and that sentence remained. Not the one you signed. My throat went hollow, like a pipe after a fire.
"What do you mean, not the one I signed?" I asked.
"I saw two versions. In one, you receive a settlement and a share of the marital property after a divorce. In the other, you waive all claims if the marriage is found to have been entered into while material facts were concealed."
"What facts?"
"Your mental condition. Fraudulent grounds. I'm not an attorney."
"But you're perfectly capable of reading when someone else's life is at stake."
"Lana, I..."
"What else?" I cut him off.
If he started apologizing, I would not survive it. The apologies of weak witnesses were nothing but background noise while forged documents were used to take ownership of your life.
Kyle was breathing heavily.
"There's a meeting at the house tonight. Vivian, Dr. Gordon, the attorney Mara Collins, and Adrian. They're going to settle the matter of your family records. They want emergency control of the Hale assets based on the medical report and your missing-person status."
"The Hale assets," I repeated.
The words were foreign and enormous. Assets.
Apparently, I had assets while I was busy admiring dresses other people chose for me.
My parents had left more than the *no property found* I had been told about.
They had left something worth keeping me in a marriage for, medicating me for, humiliating me for, and driving me toward signatures. Nausea rose again.
"How much?" Graham asked for me.
Kyle hesitated.
"I don't know exactly. But this isn't about an apartment. There's a foundation, a stake in a medical corporation, and a parcel of land for a new treatment center. The same one Adrian announced yesterday as a Mercer Foundation project."
I laughed.
The sound came out low and strangled, almost insane.
There it was. The beautiful event on the yacht.
The foundation's new initiative. Nikki as the face of the project.
Women recovering from trauma, loss, healing.
All of it was being built on my parents' land, on my documents, on my "instability.
" They had not merely taken my husband, my home, my life jacket.
They were already stamping their logo onto my blood.
"Lana," Irene said, stepping closer.
I raised a hand to stop her.
"No. I'm fine. I just realized why dying yesterday was so convenient for everyone."
Graham pulled the phone closer.
"Kyle, we need copies."
"I won't be able to open the safe."
"Then photograph whatever you can. The computer screen, messages, the meeting on the calendar, the list of attendees, anything. Most important, find the security guard who pushed Lana."
"He's already gone."
"What do you mean?"
"They backdated his termination. Officially, he wasn't on duty."
I closed my eyes. Of course. The guard had vanished. Documents were being rewritten. Reports were being signed. Adrian's world was scrubbing the deck clean while I lay hooked to an IV.
"Name?" Graham asked.
"Charles Chisholm."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know. But I heard they took him to the security company's compound outside the city. He was drunk when he arrived. He kept saying he shouldn't have pushed a pregnant woman."
My heart gave a painful thud. Pregnant. So he had heard me. The guard had heard me. He had not believed me, had obeyed anyway, but he had heard. And now they might be trying to bury that knowledge too.
"Kyle," I said. "If you don't help us now, you'll be the next person to disappear. Not because I'm threatening you. Because you've seen too much, and the Mercers have a nasty habit of reclassifying living witnesses as problems."
He said nothing. I continued more gently, and the gentleness tasted bitter even to me.
"I'm not asking you to be a hero. We ran out of heroes on that deck. Just be a human being who doesn't stand by and watch them kill me a second time."
Something clicked on the other end. Maybe a door. Maybe his resolve.
"I'll have fifteen minutes this evening when the office is empty before the meeting. I'll try."
"Don't try," Graham said. "Do it. And don't call this number again. We'll contact you."
"How?"
"You'll see."
He ended the call before Kyle had time to become afraid all over again.
The room remained silent for several seconds. Then I slowly sank back against my pillow as my strength vanished so abruptly it felt as though someone had ripped the rod from my spine. Irene came straight to me, checked my pulse and blood pressure, and looked at me with angry concern.
"Satisfied? Got your adrenaline rush? Now lie still."
"I got a list of people to hate in alphabetical order."
"Fewer jokes. Lower blood pressure."
"If I stop joking, I'll start screaming. You decide which is medically preferable."
She did not answer. She simply adjusted the blanket and, as she walked away, said quietly:
"Scream later. When it's safer."
Andrew followed her out to, as he put it, "see whether another well-bred bastard has turned up at the gates.
" Graham and I were left alone. Evening thickened beyond the window, and the guesthouse felt like a tiny island surrounded by the dark water of other people's schemes.
Graham picked up a notepad, opened to a fresh page, and began to write.
I watched his hand, the short, confident lines, and suddenly asked:
"Why do you believe me?"
He did not look up.
"Because you tell it badly."
"Is that a compliment?"
"Yes."
"You have strange standards."