Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE HIS FATHER GAVE ME
I made it to my car before my hands began shaking too badly to hold the keys.
Ethan followed me into the driveway.
“Hannah, stop.”
I opened the driver’s door.
“You’re not driving with that fever.”
It was the first sensible thing he had said all evening, but concern had nothing to do with it. His eyes kept returning to the property folder beneath my arm.
“Give me the deed,” he said. “We need to look at it together.”
“My attorney already has a copy.”
His expression changed. “You hired an attorney?”
“I hired one before you filed.”
“You knew?”
“I knew about Lauren.”
He froze.
Through the front window, Patricia stood beneath the chandelier with her phone pressed to her ear.
Ethan lowered his voice. “Lauren has nothing to do with this.”
“She believes we’ve been separated for a year.”
“That’s not what I told her.”
“I read the messages.”
His anger returned because fear had nowhere else to go.
“You went through my phone?”
“You used our anniversary as the password.”
He dragged both hands across his face.
“Hannah, I never meant for this to happen tonight. Mom pushed me to file because things between us haven’t been right.”
“Your mother didn’t book the hotel rooms.”
“It was a mistake.”
“Six months is not a mistake.”
He glanced toward the house.
“I’ll ask Lauren to leave the company. We can talk about counseling.”
“You threw divorce papers at me while I was lying on the floor.”
“You’re the one threatening to make my mother homeless.”
“Patricia owns a condo in Chesterfield. She leased it to a tenant after moving into my house. She will not be homeless.”
“You can’t evict family.”
“She has no lease, pays no rent, and just called me useless while I had a dangerous fever. She can leave.”
My vision blurred again. I gripped the door frame.
Ethan moved toward me, but I stepped back.
“Don’t touch me.”
A car turned into the driveway behind us. My closest friend, Rachel Sullivan, climbed out before it had fully stopped. Rachel and I had worked together at Hollis, Crane & Burke before I resigned. She was now a partner and the attorney handling my divorce.
She took one look at me and hurried forward.
“You look awful.”
“I feel worse.”
Rachel turned to Ethan. “She called me twenty minutes ago. I’m taking her to the hospital.”
He stared at her. “You’re her lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“This is between me and my wife.”
“You filed for divorce. That made it a legal matter.”
Patricia came outside holding her phone.
“Tell her she cannot remove anything from this property,” she said.
Rachel looked at the folder beneath my arm. “The property she owns?”
Patricia’s mouth tightened.
Rachel helped me into the passenger seat of her car. Before closing the door, I faced Ethan.
“You have seventy-two hours to remove your personal belongings. Patricia will receive formal notice tomorrow.”
“You can’t do this.”
“You already did.”
At Mercy Hospital, my temperature was 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I had pneumonia and severe dehydration. The physician admitted me overnight and said another twelve hours without treatment could have led to respiratory failure.
Ethan called eleven times.
Patricia called once and left a voicemail.
“You think that deed makes you powerful, Hannah, but you have no idea what you’re interfering with. Call me before you embarrass yourself.”
Rachel listened to it twice.
“What does she think you’re interfering with?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Frank transferred the house to you. Why?”
I looked toward the dark hospital window.
My father-in-law had been a careful, private man. Frank Mercer founded Mercer Development with two trucks and a borrowed excavator. By the time I joined the family, the company was building medical offices, schools, and shopping centers across Missouri.
Two years before he died, Frank asked me to review a property dispute. I found that the company had been paying inflated invoices to a consulting firm owned by Patricia’s brother.
When I raised the issue, Frank did not seem surprised.
He asked me to keep looking.
For the next four months, we quietly reviewed old records. We found hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable payments, but Frank refused to accuse Patricia publicly. He said he needed time to protect the company and its employees.
Soon afterward, he transferred the house to me.
He called it payment for my legal work. I refused at first, but he insisted.
“You’re the only person in this family who reads before signing,” he told me. “Someday that may matter.”
At the time, I thought he was being cautious and generous.
After Frank’s death from a heart attack, Ethan took over the company. Patricia repeatedly demanded that I transfer the house to him. I refused because Frank had placed one unusual condition in a private letter: I was not to change ownership until the company completed a full independent audit.
Ethan claimed an audit was unnecessary.
Patricia called Frank’s concern the paranoia of a sick man.
I eventually stopped asking.
Rachel sat beside my hospital bed, listening carefully.
“Where is Frank’s letter?”
“In a safe-deposit box.”
“Did Patricia know about it?”
“She knew he gave me the house. I don’t think she knew why.”
Rachel leaned back.
“She knows something.”
The next morning, she contacted Mercer Development’s longtime accountant, Samuel Price.
Samuel had retired six months after Frank died. When Rachel mentioned the house, he became silent.
Then he asked to meet me privately.
Two days later, still weak but no longer hospitalized, I sat across from him in Rachel’s conference room.
Samuel placed an old flash drive on the table.
“Frank gave me this three days before he died,” he said. “He told me to deliver it to you if Patricia or Ethan ever tried to force you out of the house.”
Rachel and I exchanged a look.
“What’s on it?” I asked.
May you like
Samuel’s face was heavy with shame.
“Proof that the money going to Patricia’s brother was only the beginning.”
