Chapter 5 - THE SECOND WOMAN
Margaret identified the voice as Rebecca’s younger sister.
Victoria Shaw.
I had met Victoria only twice.
She lived mostly in New York.
Unlike Rebecca, she was not a lawyer.
She was a private wealth consultant who specialized in distressed estates.
That phrase suddenly sounded sinister.
Victoria had attended my father’s funeral but left before the burial.
I barely remembered her.
Detective Ortiz searched financial records.
Victoria had been receiving consulting payments from Daniel for eleven months.
Daniel had labeled them “strategic planning.”
Rebecca claimed she knew nothing.
Nobody believed anything without evidence anymore.
The tracking signal had ended at Rebecca’s property because Victoria had access to it.
Security footage from a toll station showed Victoria driving the vehicle carrying the capsule.
Now the case had two sisters.
One named inside my father’s trust.
One recorded planning the deaths.
I asked Detective Ortiz the obvious question.
“Is Rebecca involved?”
“We don’t know.”
“Would Victoria benefit if Rebecca became trustee?”
“Potentially.”
“How?”
Rebecca’s trustee compensation was based partly on assets managed.
If the trust became fully professionalized, annual fees could reach millions.
But Victoria had no direct right to those fees.
Unless Rebecca hired her firm.
Which old emails suggested she had discussed doing.
The arrangement had never been approved by my father.
The night he died, Rebecca promised me she would never use the trust to enrich herself.
I remembered believing her.
Then police found Victoria.
Not at home.
Not at an airport.
At a small private marina.
She was boarding a boat when officers approached.
Victoria did not run.
She smiled.
Then asked.
“Is Daniel talking?”
Detective Ortiz answered.
“Should he be?”
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
Inside her bag were two passports.
Cash.
A second phone.
And a handwritten sequence.
N.
E.
D.
Three initials.
Noah.
Emma.
Daniel.
Beside Daniel’s initial was one phrase.
FINAL INSURANCE EVENT.
Insurance.
Police returned to Daniel’s office.
They found policies covering all three of us.
The largest policy was on Daniel himself.
Forty million dollars.
Beneficiary.
The Mercer Family Preservation Trust.
Trustee upon his death.
Rebecca Shaw.
Victoria had no legal claim.
But her consulting company had a pre-signed management agreement worth eight percent of assets recovered.
That was more than nine million dollars in immediate fees.
Suddenly, Daniel’s place in the plan looked different.
May you like
He believed he was killing us for money.
But the women advising him had apparently planned for him to die too.
