Chapter 6 - Someone Broke Into Megan’s Apartment
Richard Hale did not exist before 1999.
Not in any meaningful way.
No property.
No employment records we could easily locate.
No marriage license.
No college history.
But Richard Mercer did.
And once Detective Morales passed the name to financial-crimes investigators, pieces began surfacing.
A failed contracting company.
Two civil lawsuits.
A fraud complaint.
Then nothing.
Richard Mercer vanished.
Richard Hale appeared two years later.
Mom sat at my kitchen table as if someone had removed the floor beneath her life.
“I married a stranger.”
Megan’s expression was harder.
“No. You married a liar.”
Mom winced.
Megan did not apologize.
I understood why.
She had spent the night with a broken wrist because Mom had tried to protect Richard.
Forgiveness was not coming quickly.
Around three that afternoon, Megan’s neighbor called.
Her apartment door was open.
Megan hadn’t been there since before the hospital.
We drove over with police.
The lock had been forced.
Inside, drawers were dumped.
Mattress cut open.
Couch cushions ripped.
Closet emptied.
But the television remained.
Laptop remained.
Jewelry remained.
Nothing valuable was taken.
Someone was searching for something.
Sophie stood in the doorway.
Her face drained.
“My old phone.”
“What?”
“I left it here.”
Megan turned.
“You did?”
Sophie nodded.
She had upgraded phones six months earlier. The old one remained in a desk drawer.
It was gone.
“What was on it?” I asked.
“Pictures.”
“Anything else?”
She thought.
Then her eyes widened.
“Christmas.”
Mom looked up.
“What about Christmas?”
Sophie sat on the edge of the couch.
“Grandpa Richard and Grandma were fighting.”
“When?”
“Last Christmas Eve.”
She had recorded part of it because she was afraid.
Not video.
Audio.
She thought she deleted it.
But the old phone automatically backed up to Megan’s family cloud account.
My pulse accelerated.
We opened Megan’s laptop.
The account password still worked.
There it was.
An audio file.
December 24.
9:41 p.m.
Three minutes, eighteen seconds.
Richard’s voice filled the damaged apartment.
“You signed it, Helen.”
Mom’s face crumpled.
Her own voice followed.
“You lied to me.”
“You signed.”
“You said it was for refinancing.”
“You should read things before putting your name on them.”
Then a slap.
Not loud.
But unmistakable.
Sophie’s younger voice gasped somewhere nearby.
Mom whispered, “Don’t touch me.”
Richard laughed.
“You think Claire or Megan will believe you? Tell them. I’ll show them the checks.”
“What checks?”
“You know exactly which checks.”
“I never touched that money.”
“You cashed them.”
“You made me.”
Megan looked at Mom.
“What money?”
The recording continued.
Richard lowered his voice.
“Do you want your daughters to know their mother committed bank fraud?”
Mom began crying.
“You did this.”
“And you signed.”
Then the audio ended.
No one spoke.
Detective Morales asked the obvious question.
“What checks?”
Mom stared at the laptop.
Finally she whispered, “Insurance money.”
My chest tightened.
“What insurance money?”
“After your father died.”
The room went silent.
My biological father had carried a life-insurance policy.
Mom told us the money was modest.
Enough to pay debts and keep the house.
Apparently, that had not been true.
“How much?” I asked.
Mom began trembling.
“Four hundred eighty thousand dollars.”
I stared at her.
Megan sat down.
“You told us it was sixty.”
“I know.”
“Where did the rest go?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
Mom pressed both palms against her face.
“Richard said he invested it.”
“He wasn’t even married to you when Dad died.”
“He met me afterward.”
“How afterward?”
She didn’t answer.
And suddenly, something terrible occurred to me.
“When did you meet Richard?”
Mom’s eyes stayed closed.
“About two months after the accident.”
My grandmother’s letter had been dated three months before their wedding.
She had investigated him.
She had been afraid of him.
And Richard had appeared in Mom’s life almost immediately after Dad died.
Detective Morales leaned forward.
“Mrs. Hale, do you still have records from your first husband’s insurance settlement?”
Mom shook her head.
“Richard handled everything after we got engaged.”
Of course he did.
Then Sophie said, “There’s another thing.”
I looked at her.
She was staring at the broken desk drawer.
“Grandpa keeps a box in the garage.”
“What kind of box?”
“A gray metal one.”
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know. But once I saw Grandma’s old name on an envelope.”
“Bennett?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
We all stared at her.
“What name?”
Sophie swallowed.
May you like
“Mercer.”
Mom stopped breathing.
