Chapter 6 - The Beneficiary
Lena did not let me sleep alone after we discovered the beneficiary form.
Rachel slept in the room beside mine.
Detective Park stationed an officer downstairs.
The protective order remained active.
Daniel could not legally come within five hundred feet of me.
None of that made the darkness feel safer.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling.
Six months earlier, Daniel had increased my life-insurance coverage.
I remembered the conversation.
He had brought home wine.
He had cooked dinner.
He had been unusually affectionate.
“We should be adults about these things.”
That was what he had said.
“What things?”
“Planning.”
He told me successful couples protected each other.
He made the policy sound romantic.
I signed where he told me.
The memory made my stomach twist.
At two in the morning, I got out of bed.
Rachel was sitting on the hallway floor.
I almost screamed.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure you don't disappear.”
My throat tightened.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
We went downstairs.
Lena joined us twenty minutes later.
Nobody admitted they had been awake.
By seven, Detective Park called.
“We confirmed the life-insurance increase.”
I closed my eyes.
“How much?”
“One point five million dollars.”
Rachel whispered something angry.
“Beneficiary?”
Park continued.
“Daniel receives seventy-five percent.”
“And Mercer House?”
“Twenty-five.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“So if I died, he got money personally and his organization got more.”
“Yes.”
“Does that prove anything?”
“No.”
I hated the answer even though I knew she had to give it.
“Is it suspicious?”
“Extremely.”
“What about the fake bank account beneficiary?”
“Also suspicious.”
“Can you prove Daniel submitted it?”
“We're working on access records.”
I walked toward the window.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“We located Jasmine.”
I turned.
“Where?”
“She checked into a hospital last night.”
“Is she hurt?”
“Not physically.”
“What happened?”
“She had a panic attack after being followed home.”
My relief came slowly.
“Can we talk to her?”
“She asked for you.”
An hour later, I sat beside Jasmine Bell in a private hospital consultation room.
She looked younger than I remembered.
Her hands shook around a paper cup.
“I thought he was going to kill me.”
Detective Park sat near the door.
“Who?”
Jasmine looked at her.
“I don't know.”
“Describe the person.”
“I didn't see his face.”
She looked at me.
“But I know why he followed me.”
“Why?”
Jasmine opened her hospital bag.
She removed a folder.
“I copied these.”
“What are they?”
“Client confidentiality waivers.”
Lena had once explained Mercer House intake paperwork to me.
Clients signed extensive privacy forms.
“They look normal.”
“They aren't.”
Jasmine opened one.
“Look at page nine.”
I read.
AUTHORIZATION FOR EXTERNAL PARTNER DATA VERIFICATION.
“What does that mean?”
“Daniel told clients it allowed us to confirm housing assistance.”
“But?”
“It also authorized credit checks.”
My stomach tightened.
“Banking verification.”
Another page.
“Employment verification.”
Another.
“Background searches.”
Another.
“Emergency-contact research.”
Rachel’s name flashed through my mind.
“He collected everything.”
Jasmine nodded.
“About women who were running from abusive partners.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She began crying.
“At first I thought it was sloppy administration.”
“What changed?”
“I found folders.”
“What folders?”
“Personal profiles.”
“Whose?”
“Donors.”
“Employees.”
“Clients.”
“Spouses.”
My heart accelerated.
“Spouses?”
Jasmine looked directly at me.
“You have one.”
The room went silent.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Daniel’s private archive.”
“M-417?”
Jasmine stared.
“How do you know that number?”
“Nina.”
Her face changed.
“Nina is alive?”
“Yes.”
Jasmine covered her mouth.
“I thought…”
“What?”
“Daniel said she went to Canada after stealing.”
“Nina didn't steal.”
Jasmine looked toward Park.
“I knew it.”
“What is in my file?”
I asked.
Jasmine shook her head.
“I only saw the label.”
“CLAIRE MERCER?”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“It used your maiden name.”
That unsettled me more.
“Claire Kensington?”
“Yes.”
“When was the folder created?”
“I don't know.”
“Before we married?”
“I don't know.”
“What was inside?”
“I didn't open it.”
Park leaned forward.
“Where are these profile folders?”
“Some were digital.”
“Some?”
“The sensitive ones were paper.”
“Where?”
“Archive storage.”
“M-417?”
“Maybe.”
“Who has access?”
“Daniel.”
“Celeste?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
Jasmine hesitated.
“Adrian Cole.”
Nina’s last name.
“Cole.”
I looked toward Park.
“Related to Nina?”
Jasmine shook her head.
“No.”
“Adrian is chief operating officer.”
I knew him.
Tall.
Polished.
Always near Daniel at events.
The man who carried spare cuff links and donor lists.
“What did Adrian do?”
“Whatever Daniel needed.”
Park’s phone buzzed.
She checked it.
“We have confirmation.”
“Of what?”
“Celeste Whitman wants to meet.”
My pulse jumped.
“When?”
“Now.”
Celeste refused to come to the station.
Instead, we met in the conference room of her attorney’s office.
She was sixty-three and normally intimidating.
That morning, she looked exhausted.
A lawyer sat beside her.
Park placed a recorder on the table.
Celeste nodded.
“I understand.”
I could barely contain myself.
“Where is M-417?”
Her attorney lifted a hand.
“Mrs. Mercer—”
Celeste interrupted him.
“No.”
She looked at me.
“She deserves that answer.”
Then she reached beneath the table.
She lifted a black document case.
My breath stopped.
The case from Daniel’s closet.
“M-417.”
Celeste placed it on the table.
“How did you get that?”
I whispered.
“Daniel asked me to retrieve it yesterday morning.”
“Why did you?”
“So he would believe I was still helping him.”
The room became silent.
Lena had been right.
“You're not?”
Celeste laughed bitterly.
“I have been trying to remove that man for two years.”
“Then why issue a statement supporting him?”
“Because Daniel owns four board votes.”
“How?”
“Money.”
“Blackmail.”
“Both.”
“Why not go to police?”
“I didn't know who I could trust.”
Her eyes moved toward Park.
“Daniel boasted about police donors.”
Park remained expressionless.
“What is inside the case?”
Celeste slid it toward her.
“I haven't opened it.”
“Why?”
“Because once I retrieved it, I knew chain of custody would matter.”
Park called for evidence technicians.
Nobody touched the case again.
Thirty minutes later, a technician opened it wearing gloves.
Inside were six folders.
A small external drive.
A handwritten ledger.
And photographs.
My knees weakened when I saw the red cover.
“Nina was right.”
Park opened the ledger carefully.
Names filled the pages.
Amounts.
Dates.
Initials.
Short notes.
Some names I recognized.
Board members.
City officials.
Donors.
Former clients.
Employees.
Then Park reached the photographs.
The first showed a woman outside a courthouse.
The second showed Nina entering a bank.
The third showed Jasmine leaving her apartment.
The fourth showed Rachel hugging me outside Mom’s house three years earlier.
Then Park lifted one last photograph.
I forgot how to breathe.
It was me.
Twenty-eight years old.
Walking out of a real-estate office.
The photograph had been taken three months before I met Daniel.
On the back, someone had written:
CLAIRE KENSINGTON.
HOMEOWNER.
NO CHILDREN.
ESTIMATED EQUITY: $380K.
MOTHER DECEASED.
FATHER DECEASED.
SISTER: PRIMARY ATTACHMENT.
LOW DEBT.
GOOD CREDIT.
I stared at the date.
Daniel had always told everyone we met by accident at a charity auction.
But the photograph proved something else.
May you like
Months before he introduced himself, Daniel Mercer already knew exactly who I was.
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