Chapter 6 - The Vote at Nine
Jonathan Reed had been part of the Mercer family for so long that Sarah had stopped thinking of him as an outsider.
He attended Christmas dinner.
He sent Mia books on her birthday.
He had stood beside Evelyn at Michael’s hospital bed.
At Michael’s funeral, Jonathan had carried one side of the casket.
Now Sarah sat across from David Lane and listened as the man’s name attached itself to a disabled camera system, a missing trust schedule, and a phone call designed to erase Michael’s final instructions.
“Why would Jonathan care who controls Mia’s trust?”
David opened another binder.
“Because Mercer Development has a board vote at nine tomorrow morning.”
“On what?”
“A sale.”
“What sale?”
“Riverbend.”
Sarah knew the name.
Mercer Riverbend was a seventy-acre commercial site outside the city, owned by the family company since the eighties. Michael had once told her his grandfather refused three offers because the land would eventually be worth more than downtown.
“How much?”
“The current proposed sale is forty-one million.”
“Who’s buying it?”
“An investment consortium.”
“Why have I heard none of this?”
“Because you don’t sit on the board.”
“Neither does Mia.”
“Her trust does.”
Sarah stared.
David slid a diagram toward her.
Mercer Development had one hundred voting units.
Evelyn personally controlled thirty-four.
A family holding trust controlled eleven.
Three minority relatives held a combined twenty-two.
Michael had owned thirty-three.
When he died, those thirty-three units moved into a testamentary trust for Mia.
Until Mia turned five, Evelyn served as managing trustee.
Beginning on Mia’s fifth birthday, the final amendment—if valid and if the missing schedule proved those units were covered—would make Sarah special trustee for extraordinary transactions.
Asset sales over twenty-five million required sixty percent approval.
Without Michael’s thirty-three units, Evelyn could not reach it.
“With them,” Sarah said, “she controls sixty-seven.”
“Depending on the other votes.”
“And tomorrow she wants to sell Riverbend.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
David leaned back.
“That is the question.”
Sarah thought of Evelyn’s words.
The debt.
“What debt does Mercer Development have?”
“A company its size always has debt.”
“Not normal debt.”
David hesitated.
“Michael became concerned about a credit facility before he died.”
“How large?”
“I never saw the final documents.”
“David.”
“I heard twelve million.”
Sarah stood.
“He hid twelve million dollars in debt from me?”
“It wasn’t personal debt.”
“He hid it.”
“Yes.”
She walked to the window.
For months before Michael died, they had fought over his behavior.
Late nights.
Cancelled vacations.
A sudden insistence that Sarah reduce household spending even though they had plenty of money.
She had accused him of trying to control her.
He had accused her of refusing to understand pressure.
Both had said things they could never retrieve.
Now she wondered whether she had been arguing with a man trying to prevent a corporate disaster.
That did not excuse him.
It made his silence worse.
“What happens if Riverbend isn’t sold?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
“I’m trying.”
Sarah turned.
“And the key?”
David studied the brass key.
“I called every bank Rebecca and I used professionally. One branch manager confirmed Michael maintained a box under a confidential client arrangement.”
“Can I open it?”
“Not automatically. The bank will need documentation. The key alone won’t do it.”
“How long?”
“If the box is titled through his trust and you now have authority, perhaps a day. Perhaps longer.”
“A day is after the vote.”
“Yes.”
Sarah looked at Michael’s amendment.
“Can we stop the vote?”
“Maybe.”
“How?”
“If we establish that your trustee rights have vested.”
“Without the missing schedule?”
“That’s the problem.”
Sarah picked up her phone.
A text from Danielle Bennett waited.
SARAH, PLEASE CALL ME. ZOE REMEMBERED SOMETHING.
She called immediately.
Danielle answered on the first ring.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you last night.”
“What?”
“Zoe says there was a man downstairs.”
Sarah sat.
“What man?”
“She didn’t see his face clearly. She was at the top of the service stairs. She saw Evelyn take Mia down. Then another person came through the kitchen corridor.”
“Did she recognize him?”
“No. But she said he was wearing a dark jacket and a silver watch.”
The frozen camera reflection flashed in Sarah’s mind.
“Anything else?”
“He told Evelyn something.”
“What?”
“Zoe couldn’t hear all of it.”
Sarah waited.
“She heard him say, ‘You only need the key.’”
Sarah closed her eyes.
David watched her.
“What?”
Sarah repeated it.
David said nothing.
Then his office assistant knocked and entered carrying a courier envelope.
“This just came for you.”
“For me?”
“No return name.”
Sarah opened it.
Inside was a photocopy of a Mercer Development board agenda.
Tomorrow’s Riverbend vote was item four.
Someone had circled item six in red.
AUTHORIZATION OF EMERGENCY COLLATERAL DISPOSITION.
Below it, handwritten in block letters:
COMPARE THE APRIL 2024 MINUTES TO THE ORIGINALS.
Sarah turned the page.
A second message waited.
May you like
MICHAEL FOUND THE FIRST LIE.
THERE WERE MORE.
