Chapter 6 - DAVID’S FIRST LIE
David agreed to meet in Kate’s office.
He arrived without Jessica or Michael.
At seventy, he still carried himself like the founder whose decisions filled rooms before he entered them.
“Your mother saved Carter Coastal,” he said.
“With a loan?”
“With capital.”
“How much?”
He would not answer.
He claimed the Mercer Family Capital Pool had been created to support the company and all descendants.
“Then why did no one tell me my daughters had accounts?”
“Your mother wanted protection from family conflict.”
“She died six years ago. Who controlled the money?”
David looked away.
I understood.
“You did.”
“Temporarily.”
“How much is left?”
“The company has been under pressure.”
“That was not the question.”
He called the transfers necessary.
He called Jessica’s expenses representational.
He called Michael’s actions mistakes made under urgency.
Every theft became softer inside his vocabulary.
Kate asked whether he knew about the dinner plan.
“I knew they wanted Emily to sign.”
“Did you know the children would be denied food?”
“No.”
Olivia’s video captured David eating while Jessica spoke.
He had known once it happened.
He had still done nothing.
Before leaving, David warned me that freezing the capital pool would destroy the company and reduce every beneficiary’s future value.
“You are asking me to fund the people who used my children.”
“I am asking you not to burn down what your mother built.”
He placed a brass key on the table.
It opened a document cabinet in Carter Coastal’s original dockside office.
The court-appointed examiner used it under supervision.
The cabinet held ledgers, old contracts, and an unsigned agreement referring to “protected child units.”
The signature schedule was missing.
That evening the dockside office caught fire.
Firefighters contained the damage.
The cabinet had been emptied after the examination.
Only one room burned severely:
Records storage.
Security footage showed Michael entering the building thirty minutes before smoke appeared.
He told police he went to retrieve payroll files.
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Then investigators found Hannah’s car abandoned near the harbor.
Blood marked the inside of the driver’s door.
