Daniel slept less than three hours.
At 6:14 the next morning, he stood barefoot in his kitchen making pancakes while Sophie slept upstairs.
His phone vibrated across the counter.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
Daniel stared at it before answering.
“Daniel Mercer.”
Silence.
Then a man spoke.
“Don’t trust your board.”
Daniel turned down the stove.
“Who is this?”
“The Bellmont House investigation was never supposed to reach you.”
Daniel’s attention sharpened.
“What do you know about it?”
“Vanessa Cole wasn’t operating alone.”
“Who was?”
“I can’t tell you over this line.”
“Then why call?”
“Because you’re looking at the wrong level.”
Daniel moved toward the window.
Dawn had barely begun to lighten the street.
“What level should I be looking at?”
“The complaints. Employee discipline. financial records. All of it was being controlled.”
“By whom?”
The caller paused.
“Someone who knew you’d eventually visit Bellmont House.”
Daniel’s grip tightened.
“Where are you?”
“I’ll contact you again.”
“Wait.”
The call ended.
Daniel immediately tried the number.
Disconnected.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Behind him, something hissed.
He turned.
Smoke curled from the pancake.
“Daddy?”
Sophie stood in the doorway in pink pajamas.
Daniel killed the burner.
She looked at the pan.
“You burned breakfast.”
“Only part of it.”
“You always burn the round ones.”
“They’re all supposed to be round.”
“Not yours.”
He smiled despite himself.
Sophie climbed onto a stool.
“Was that the restaurant?”
“Something about work.”
“Is the mean lady coming back?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Sophie studied him.
“Then why are you worried?”
Daniel leaned against the counter.
Children noticed what adults believed they concealed.
“Sometimes,” he said, “you fix one problem and discover another hiding underneath it.”
Sophie nodded solemnly.
“Like my room.”
Daniel smiled.
“Exactly like your room.”
“Except my room doesn’t call you before breakfast.”
“That’s true.”
She reached for a strawberry.
“You’ll fix it.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I’m going to try.”
By eight, he was inside Bellmont Hospitality headquarters.
Conversations stopped as he crossed the lobby.
Daniel rarely appeared without warning, and after the previous night, rumors had traveled faster than any official announcement.
Richard waited outside the executive conference room.
“You got another message?”
“A call.”
Richard’s expression tightened.
Daniel told him what the caller had said.
When he mentioned the financial records, Richard looked away.
Daniel noticed.
“What?”
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted confirmation first.”
Daniel opened the conference-room door.
“Then confirm it now.”
Marcus Whitmore, Bellmont Hospitality’s chief financial officer, sat at the long table with several folders open before him.
Daniel stopped.
“Marcus.”
The CFO stood.
“We have a problem.”
“How large?”
Marcus pushed a report across the table.
“Roughly four hundred eighty thousand dollars.”
Daniel did not sit.
“Missing?”
“Misallocated.”
“Those are different words.”
“Yes.”
“Which one is accurate?”
Marcus hesitated.
“We don’t know yet.”
Daniel opened the report.
Payments to vendors.
Refunds.
Marketing expenses.
Bonuses.
Consulting fees.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Northbridge Advisory.
Daniel tapped it.
“Who are they?”
Marcus shook his head.
“We can’t find a valid contract.”
“How many payments?”
“Twelve.”
“Who approved them?”
Marcus looked at Richard.
Richard said nothing.
Daniel turned the page himself.
Digital authorization records appeared at the bottom.
He recognized the account.
His.
Daniel looked up.
“I never approved these.”
“We know.”
“Then someone used my credentials.”
“That’s our working assumption.”
“Who has the necessary access?”
Marcus counted carefully.
“You. Me. Richard. And the chief operating officer.”
Daniel already knew the fourth name.
“Gregory Shaw.”
Nobody answered.
Gregory had worked beside Daniel’s father before Daniel inherited control of Bellmont Hospitality.
He had helped Daniel learn the business.
He had attended Daniel and Anna’s wedding.
After Anna died, Gregory had encouraged Daniel to spend less time at headquarters.
Take care of Sophie, he had said.
I’ll handle the company.
Daniel remembered something else.
“Gregory recommended Vanessa.”
Richard nodded.
“He also reviewed three complaints against her before compliance became involved.”
“And dismissed them.”
“Yes.”
Daniel felt cold.
“Where is he?”
Marcus checked his phone.
“Not here.”
“What time does he normally arrive?”
“Before eight.”
It was 8:17.
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Don’t confront Gregory yet.
Richard read the message over his shoulder.
“Same person?”
“Probably.”
Another message arrived.
Look at the March 17 complaint.
Daniel turned toward Richard.
“Pull it.”
Richard opened his laptop.
“Why March seventeenth?”
“That was the first anonymous complaint involving Vanessa.”
Marcus frowned.
Daniel remembered something else.
“And Gregory left town that afternoon.”
Richard searched the archive.
“Found it.”
The complaint was brief but specific: guests were being ranked by appearance, employees were instructed to prioritize wealthy customers, and complaints were disappearing.
“There’s an attachment,” Richard said.
He opened it.
A photograph filled the screen.
Vanessa stood in the Bellmont House back office.
Beside her was Gregory Shaw.
Between them lay a spreadsheet.
Richard enlarged it.
Guest names filled the rows.
Beside them were estimated spending amounts.
Some were highlighted green.
Others red.
Marcus stared.
“They were ranking customers.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Richard opened another attachment.
An audio file.
Vanessa’s voice filled the room.
She asked whether corporate would investigate.
Gregory replied that Daniel was distracted by raising Sophie and unlikely to notice operational details.
Daniel felt something hard settle inside him.
The recording continued.
Vanessa asked how long their arrangement could continue.
Gregory answered that it would last until the ownership structure changed.
Richard paused the recording.
Daniel looked at him.
“Continue.”
Gregory’s voice returned.
He spoke about transferring authority to an executive group so Daniel would lose the ability to interfere directly.
Daniel remembered a restructuring proposal Gregory had presented six months earlier.
He had refused to sign it.
“Find that proposal.”
Richard searched the corporate filing system.
His face changed.
“What?”
“It was filed.”
Daniel stepped beside him.
“That’s impossible.”
The document appeared.
At the bottom was Daniel Mercer’s signature.
It looked perfect.
Daniel knew immediately it was false.
“I didn’t sign that.”
Richard scrolled lower.
“The document was notarized.”
“By whom?”
Richard opened the certification.
Then he stopped moving.
Daniel leaned closer.
The notary’s name appeared beneath the seal.
Elaine Mercer.
Daniel stared at it.
For several seconds, the room seemed to lose sound.
Richard spoke carefully.
“Daniel?”
Elaine was the name of Daniel’s late wife in an old company filing created before she began using Anna professionally and socially.
Almost nobody remembered it.
Anna had died three years earlier.
Yet someone had used an identity connected to her to certify a forged restructuring document.
“Who has access to her old records?” Daniel asked.
Marcus shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Daniel’s hands had begun trembling.
His phone rang.
This time he recognized the number.
Claire.
Anna’s sister.
He answered immediately.
“Claire?”
Her breathing was uneven.
“Daniel, I need to tell you something.”
“What happened?”
“I should have told you months ago.”
His stomach tightened.
“Told me what?”
“I found something that belonged to Anna.”
Daniel sat down.
“What?”
“A letter.”
“Where?”
“In a safety-deposit box she kept before she died.”
Daniel looked at Richard.
“What does it say?”
Claire began crying.
“Daniel, she knew someone was stealing from Bellmont.”
Nobody in the conference room moved.
“Who?”
Claire struggled to answer.
Finally she whispered the name.
“Gregory Shaw.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
The man who had stood beside him at Anna’s funeral.
The man who had helped carry her coffin.
The man who had told Daniel to go home and raise his daughter while he took care of the company.
Daniel opened his eyes.
“Is that all?”
“No.”
Claire’s voice cracked.
“She wrote that if something happened to her, you weren’t supposed to trust anyone inside Bellmont.”
Daniel looked at Richard.
Then Marcus.
Then the closed conference-room door.
A terrible possibility formed.
Anna had not merely discovered theft.
She had believed discovery placed her in danger.
Daniel forced himself to speak.
“Claire, why didn’t you tell me when you found the letter?”
“I was scared.”
“Of Gregory?”
“Of what the letter implied.”
“What did it imply?”
Claire was silent too long.
Daniel stood.
“Claire.”
“When Anna died, everybody said the crash was an accident.”
Daniel’s pulse quickened.
“It was.”
“I don’t think Anna believed it would be.”
Daniel gripped the phone.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she was afraid before she died.”
The conference room seemed suddenly too small.
Daniel remembered rain.
A police officer at his door.
Sophie asleep upstairs.
Anna’s car destroyed on the interstate.
Three years of grief built around one accepted fact:
It had been an accident.
Now that fact was beginning to fracture.
Daniel stared at the forged document bearing his wife’s old identity.
“Claire, where are you?”
“At home.”
“Stay there.”
“Daniel—”
“Lock the door. I’m sending someone.”
He ended the call.
Richard stood.
“What did she say?”
Daniel looked at him.
“My wife knew about Gregory.”
Marcus went pale.
“How long ago?”
“Before she died.”
Richard understood.
“Daniel, we cannot jump from financial fraud to—”
“I’m not jumping anywhere.”
His voice was controlled.
“I’m going back to the beginning.”
He pointed at the forged signature.
“Someone used my credentials.”
Then at Anna’s name.
“Someone used hers.”
Then at the photograph of Gregory and Vanessa.
“And someone spent months preventing complaints from reaching me.”
Daniel picked up his jacket.
“Find Gregory.”
Richard nodded.
“And if he won’t come?”
Daniel looked once more at the photograph.
“Then we go to him.”
His phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
This time the message contained only a photograph.
Daniel opened it.
It showed Gregory Shaw leaving Bellmont headquarters at 2:19 that morning.
In his hand was a company archive box.
Written across the side were two words Daniel had not seen in years.
PROJECT MERIDIAN.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: A Forged Signature Bearing His Dead Wife’s Identity Forced Daniel to Question the Accident He Had Mourned for Three Years
A Quiet Dinner in Booth Seventeen Became the Test Daniel Mercer Had Been Waiting Two Months to Conduct
Part 3 of 35
