Chapter 6 - The Woman Behind the MessagesHer name was Claire Mercer.
She agreed to meet me in a parking garage at 2:00 a.m.
My parents hated the idea.
I went anyway.
Claire stood beside a silver sedan wearing a dark coat.
She was in her thirties.
Calm.
Watchful.
And exhausted.
"You really came."
"I have questions."
"So do I."
"Why help me?"
She looked away.
"Because your husband destroyed my family."
I stared at her.
"Preston?"
"My father worked for Caldwell Hotels for eighteen years."
"What happened?"
"He discovered money was being diverted from employee pension funds."
My stomach tightened.
"How much?"
"Millions."
"And he reported it?"
"He tried."
Claire's voice cracked.
"My father was found dead three days later."
I said nothing.
"The police called it suicide."
"You don't believe them."
"No."
She handed me a folder.
Inside was a photograph of a man standing beside Veronica.
My father's name wasn't on it.
Neither was Preston's.
But another name appeared.
Harrison Caldwell.
Below it:
Margaret Mercer.
Claire's mother.
"That's my mother," Claire said.
I looked at her.
"She worked for Harrison?"
"Yes."
"What did she do?"
"She handled the private records."
My mother would have known what that meant.
Account transfers.
Hidden contracts.
Private payments.
Evidence.
Claire continued.
"Six months before my father died, my mother disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"She left everything behind."
"Do you think she's alive?"
Claire looked at me.
"I know she is."
My heart stopped.
"How?"
"Because she contacted me last month."
She handed me another paper.
A letter.
The handwriting was elegant.
The message was short.
The Caldwell family is built on stolen money. The Grant family has unknowingly protected it. Find the Black Room.
I looked at Claire.
"Why didn't she contact me?"
"She tried."
"What happened?"
"Veronica found her first."
My blood ran cold.
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know."
Claire looked at me.
"But I know where the ledger is."
I leaned forward.
"Where?"
"The museum."
I frowned.
"My museum?"
"Your father donated a private archive there twenty years ago."
I remembered the archive.
A dusty basement collection containing old business records.
"What does that have to do with Harrison Caldwell?"
"Everything."
She showed me a photograph.
A young William Grant.
A young Harrison Caldwell.
Standing together.
My father had never told me they knew each other.
There was another photograph.
My father.
Harrison.
And Margaret Mercer.
Three people.
One table.
One document.
I stared.
"What is that?"
"The original Caldwell financing agreement."
I looked at Claire.
"Why would it be at my museum?"
"Because your father was ordered to protect it."
"By whom?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know."
Another message appeared on my phone.
Not from Claire.
This one was different.
Come alone to the museum at midnight.
I showed Claire.
She went pale.
"Don't go."
"Why?"
"Because whoever sent that knows we're together."
"Then they're watching us."
Claire looked around the parking garage.
"They've been watching you since before your wedding."
I froze.
"How long?"
"Since the moment Preston first approached you."
I suddenly remembered everything.
The strange man near my apartment.
The car parked outside the museum.
The repeated calls.
The feeling I had been watched.
I had dismissed all of it.
Now it felt like pieces of a trap.
My father called.
"Where are you?"
"With Claire."
Silence.
Then:
"Get away from her."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"I just received a photograph."
"What photograph?"
A message appeared on my screen.
It showed Claire standing beside the Caldwell mansion.
But the photograph was dated two weeks before she said she had met me.
Underneath it was one sentence.
Claire Mercer has been working for Veronica Caldwell.
I looked at Claire.
She stared at the image.
Then whispered:
"That's not me."
I believed her.
Because I recognized the face.
The woman in the photograph was Claire.
But her hair was different.
Her expression was different.
And suddenly I understood.
There were two women.
One Claire Mercer.
And one impostor.
Someone who had spent weeks creating a false trail.
Someone close enough to Veronica to enter the mansion.
May you like
And whoever she was, she wanted me at the museum that night.
Alone.
