“Potentially eight to nine million dollars.”
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was my baby’s heartbeat.
“You lied to me.”
“I withheld information.”
“That is a lawyer’s way of saying you lied.”
Samuel absorbed the accusation.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the trust was sealed until your thirty-second birthday or the birth of your first child, whichever occurred first.”
I put both hands over my stomach.
“My birthday is in five weeks.”
“Yes.”
“And the baby is due in seven.”
“Yes.”
A cold feeling spread through me.
“Did Grant know?”
“I never told him.”
Officer Torres asked, “Could he have discovered it?”
Samuel’s expression changed.
“Three weeks ago, he called me.”
I felt as if the bed had tilted beneath me.
“He what?”
“He said he was helping you organize family financial records before the baby arrived.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I believed it was ordinary curiosity.”
“Did he ask about the trust?”
“Not directly.”
“What did he ask?”
“Whether your parents left unresolved business interests.”
Officer Torres started writing.
I remembered Grant asking me about boxes in Samuel’s attic.
Old photographs.
Names from childhood.
Whether my father had ever worked with technology companies.
I had thought he was interested in my past.
Now I wondered whether he had been inventorying it.
Samuel told me the company was called Northstar Navigation Systems. It had begun by developing tracking technology for maritime rescue operations and later expanded into defense contracting.
My mother had received shares years before through an earlier marriage.
“Earlier marriage?”
Samuel went silent.
There it was.
Another secret.
“My mother was married before my father?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“Jonathan Mercer. One of Northstar’s founders.”
“Did they have children?”
Samuel looked down.
“One son.”
My heart began pounding.
“I have a brother?”
“A half brother.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
“What was his name?”
“Caleb Mercer.”
The name touched something in my memory.
Sunlight.
A dock.
A boy much older than me holding my hand.
A silver compass around his neck.
“Birdie,” I whispered.
Samuel looked up sharply.
“What?”
“He called me Birdie.”
For the first time that night, Samuel looked frightened.
Before he could speak, a nurse entered carrying white lilies.
“No sender name,” she said.
Samuel opened the card.
The color left his face.
I took it from him.
There was one sentence.
Ask Samuel what he removed from the wreck before the police arrived.
Below it was a hand-drawn compass.
I looked at Samuel.
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