Chapter 3 - William Mercer’s Last Warning
Sarah opened the envelope with careful fingers.
Inside was a single sheet of thick stationery, folded once. William’s handwriting was shakier than it used to be, but still legible.
Sarah—if Margaret is humiliating Noah, it means she has already decided to force something through quickly. Do not let David sign anything until Thomas sees the blue ledger. It is hidden where Margaret never looks. Trust Noah. He knows the room.
Sarah read it twice.
David took the paper from her hand. “What blue ledger?”
Noah spoke before she could answer. “Grandpa called it the boat book.”
David looked at him. “You know where it is?”
Noah nodded, then looked suddenly nervous, as if he had said too much. “He showed me because he said I was the only one who still asked about the old house things.”
“What room?” Sarah asked.
Noah lowered his voice. “The little chapel room. Behind Grandma’s big portrait in the upstairs hall.”
David gave a hollow laugh of disbelief. “There is no chapel room.”
“There used to be,” Sarah said quietly.
David turned to her.
“When your father gave us the house tour after the wedding,” she said, “he mentioned a prayer room from the original house design. Your mother interrupted him and changed the subject.”
David remembered the moment immediately. At the time it had seemed like nothing. Now it felt like the second lie.
Just then, the sunroom door opened.
A housemaid stood there nervously, eyes fixed on the floor. “Mr. Mercer? Mrs. Mercer asked me to tell you dinner is over, and you are expected in the library in fifteen minutes.”
David frowned. “Why?”
The maid swallowed. “Mr. Bell has arrived early.”
There was the third lie.
Margaret hadn’t planned for tomorrow at all. She had planned for today.
She had wanted Sarah and David to walk into that dining room, see Noah on the floor, react emotionally, and then face the estate attorney already upset, off balance, and discredited.
David folded his father’s note and slid it into his pocket. “Take Noah upstairs,” he told Sarah.
“No,” Noah said immediately. “I want to stay with you.”
Sarah knelt in front of him. “Can you show me where Grandpa hid the blue ledger?”
Noah nodded.
“Then we go together,” she said.
David looked toward the library doors, then back at his wife and son. His face had changed. Not just angry now. Focused.
“All right,” he said. “We find the ledger before my mother gets whatever she wants signed.”
He took one step toward the hallway.
Then his phone buzzed in his pocket.
It was Thomas Bell.
May you like
When David answered, the attorney’s voice was low and tense. “Don’t come into the library yet. Your mother is not the only person who’s been lying.”
---
