Chapter 13 - THE MAN USING ROBERT’S NAME
At first, we believed the initials were intended to frighten me.
Then Evelyn examined the account.
It had been opened eight years earlier.
One year before Robert died.
The contact had communicated with Marcus more than seventy times.
Some messages included details only Robert’s business partners should have known.
Daniel stared at the screen.
“Dad was sick during that time.”
“He could still use a phone,” I said.
“But he would never help Marcus steal the company.”
Evelyn agreed.
“Then someone close to him used his identity.”
The messages referenced a private workshop at Lake Hollow.
Robert owned a small cabin there.
He visited during the early years of the software company.
After his cancer diagnosis, he stopped going.
Daniel and I traveled to the property with investigators.
Dust covered the furniture.
The electricity had been disconnected.
Behind the workshop wall, police found a hidden office.
The desk contained photographs of Daniel meeting early investors.
Copies of my trust documents.
And medical records from Robert’s treatment.
Someone had watched our family for years.
A laptop inside the safe still worked.
The user profile was labeled R.M.
The final login occurred three months earlier.
A security photograph showed the person entering the cabin.
Daniel recognized him.
“Uncle Raymond.”
Raymond Mercer was Robert’s younger brother.
He had disappeared from our lives after arguing with Robert about the company.
We believed he moved overseas.
Records showed he remained in the United States under several business names.
One of those companies invested in Vale Dynamics.
Raymond introduced Marcus’s father to the technology.
He believed Robert had stolen the company idea from him.
The family trust excluded Raymond entirely.
That gave him motive.
Police traced a current address to an apartment in Boston.
It was empty.
On the wall, someone had pinned a photograph of the garden.
The picture was taken the morning Vanessa cut my hair.
Raymond had been watching from the street.
He knew Daniel returned early.
He knew the cameras existed.
He had allowed Marcus and Vanessa to fail.
A map on the table showed Mercer Systems offices around the country.
One location was circled.
The employee backup center.
The place where my voting shares would transfer if I were declared incompetent.
Daniel looked at the date written beneath the circle.
May you like
Tomorrow.
Raymond planned to attack the employee trust before it could take control.
