Chapter 6 - LILY'S QUESTION
The hardest part was not the police investigation.
It was bedtime.
Lily had started asking whether I could fall down again. She asked if the wheelchair was safe. She asked whether people who promised to love you could still hurt you.
I tried to answer every question honestly without giving her more fear than she could carry.
One night, she sat beside me while I brushed my teeth.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Did Mommy know Vanessa would be mean?”
I stopped.
Emily had been gone for four years. Lily remembered her in fragments: a lullaby, a yellow raincoat, the smell of vanilla lotion.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Would Mommy have liked her?”
I looked at my daughter's reflection.
“I think your mom would have wanted to know someone very well before trusting them.”
Lily nodded.
“I liked Vanessa.”
“I know.”
“I thought she liked me too.”
I turned off the tap and knelt as carefully as I could.
“Someone can be nice sometimes and still make very bad choices. What Vanessa did was not your fault.”
“Did I make her angry by filming?”
“No.”
“Did I make her go away?”
“No, Lily. Her choices did that.”
She leaned against me.
“I miss when things were normal.”
I held her gently.
“Me too.”
A few days later, Thomas brought me a new development.
The trust records had been accessed through a company account belonging to Vanessa's former employer. The access log showed that a copy of Emily's will had been downloaded, along with a confidential letter from the trust administrator.
The letter contained a clause Emily had added shortly before her death.
If Daniel Mercer remarried, the trust would remain entirely separate from any future spouse. Any attempt to obtain control over Lily's trust through marriage, guardianship, or coercion would trigger an independent review by the successor trustee.
Emily had anticipated that someone might try.
I read the clause three times.
“She knew,” I whispered.
Thomas shook his head.
“She didn't know Vanessa, Daniel. She was protecting Lily from possibilities.”
I sat back.
“Then Vanessa knew she couldn't get the trust through marriage.”
“Correct.”
“And that's why she wanted me declared incapable.”
Thomas nodded.
The pieces were fitting together.
But one question remained.
Why had Vanessa chosen the staircase?
The answer came from a message recovered from Peter's phone.
PETER: What if the accident doesn't work?
VANESSA: Then he'll be too frightened to challenge me. He'll sign whatever I put in front of him.
PETER: And if he gets worse?
VANESSA: Then we won't need his signature.
I read the message in silence.
Thomas took the phone from my hand.
“Daniel, you need to let the police handle this.”
“I will.”
May you like
But I was no longer only trying to understand what Vanessa had done.
I was trying to understand how close I had come to never seeing my daughter again.
