Chapter 3 - The Dead Attorney
The man in the hospital footage was not Thomas Bell.
He only looked enough like him to make my stomach turn.
His height was similar.
His gray hair was combed the same way.
He wore the same style of brown overcoat Thomas had worn for years.
But when Detective Cole enlarged the image, I saw a face I had never met.
Nora and I were moved to a hotel under police supervision.
By midnight, Cole had identified him.
His name was Grant Wheeler.
Former accountant.
Former employee of Evan’s firm.
And according to public records, Grant had disappeared from professional life two years earlier after being accused of falsifying client documents.
Evan had been the person who reported him.
“That sounds convenient,” Nora said.
Cole agreed.
Grant’s name also appeared in financial records connected to Blackstone Advisory.
The same company that had received money from my inheritance.
“What does he want from me?”
Cole looked toward the hotel window.
“We’re trying to determine that.”
I already knew.
He wanted something connected to the money.
At 1:16 in the morning, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Cole told me not to answer.
Then the caller left a voicemail.
We played it on speaker.
A man whispered.
“Mara, if you want to know why your father died, stop talking to the police.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
Nora covered her mouth.
My father had died of a heart attack.
At least that was what we had been told.
He collapsed in his study after dinner.
He was sixty-eight.
He had high blood pressure.
There had been no autopsy because his doctor had signed the death certificate without hesitation.
But three days before his death, Dad had called me.
He asked strange questions about Evan.
Whether Evan had access to my accounts.
Whether Diane still visited our house when I was working.
Whether I had signed new financial documents.
I had become irritated.
“Dad, Evan is my husband.”
My father had gone quiet.
Then he said something I had forgotten until that moment.
“Marriage doesn’t turn dishonesty into loyalty.”
The next morning, he was dead.
I looked at Cole.
“You need to reopen my father’s death.”
Cole did not promise.
Instead, she asked what my father had been doing before he died.
I told her he had spent decades as a commercial real estate developer.
He sold his company five years earlier.
He kept meticulous records.
He trusted almost nobody.
Except Thomas Bell.
His attorney.
Cole immediately asked about Thomas.
I explained that Thomas died eleven months after my father.
A car accident on a rural road.
Cole wrote something down.
Nora noticed.
“You think those deaths are connected?”
Cole shut her notebook.
“I think two dead men were both connected to Mara’s inheritance.”
Before she could say more, someone knocked on the hotel door.
Three slow knocks.
No hotel employee had been scheduled.
Cole drew her weapon.
The second detective moved to the wall.
Another knock.
Then a man spoke from the hallway.
“My name is Grant Wheeler.”
Cole went completely still.
Grant continued.
“I know what Diane Mercer did.”
May you like
I could hear fear in his voice.
“I also know what she’s going to do next.”
