Chapter 1 - THE NIGHT THE TELEVISION TURNED AGAINST HER
Nathan’s hand was already locked around my upper arm when his mother smiled at me from the television.
“Turn it off, Elena. Now.”
His fingers dug through the sleeve of my teal dress as he dragged me backward from the console.
Thirty relatives were scattered through Robert and Diane Mercer’s North Raleigh living room for the annual family reunion. A minute earlier, everyone had been drinking wine and arguing about football.
Now nobody moved.
I caught the edge of the dark television cabinet before my knees hit the floor.
“Nathan, let go.”
He pulled harder.
Across the room, his father finally stood.
“Nathan?”
My husband ignored him.
On the wall-mounted television, Diane’s prerecorded face filled the screen. She sat in the same silver blouse she was wearing that evening, holding a remote and smiling as if she were hosting an awards ceremony.
“Tonight everyone finally sees who you are,” the recording said.
A few relatives shifted uncomfortably.
Nathan reached past me toward the television console.
I blocked him.
His control slipped.
He shoved me sideways.
My hip struck the cabinet.
A lamp rattled.
So did the framed photograph of Robert holding Nathan at a Little League game twenty-eight years earlier.
Robert moved fast.
“Nathan! Take your hands off her!”
He caught his son’s forearm with both hands and forced it away from me.
Nathan recoiled half a step.
I straightened.
My eyes were wet.
My hands were steady.
Beside the television sat a clear evidence bag containing the tiny black camera I had found hidden in my bathroom three weeks earlier.
Next to it was a USB drive.
Nathan saw them.
His face changed.
Until then he had been furious.
Now he looked frightened.
I pressed one button.
Diane disappeared from the television.
A different video appeared.
Poorly framed.
Slightly tilted.
Date-stamped three months earlier.
Diane sat at the breakfast table in this same house.
Nathan sat beside her.
Between them lay a survey map and several legal pages.
The camera had been farther away then, hidden in another room before someone moved it into my bathroom.
No text on the paperwork could be read from the video.
It didn’t need to be.
Robert recognized the parcel map.
“What is that?”
Nathan stepped forward.
Robert blocked him.
I lifted the evidence bag.
“You’re right,” I said, looking at Diane.
“Tonight, they will.”
The video advanced.
Recorded Diane pushed one page toward Nathan.
Recorded Nathan placed his hand beside hers.
Robert moved closer to the television.
His face drained.
“That's Mercer Ridge.”
Nathan said, “Dad—”
Robert raised one hand.
Mercer Ridge was twenty-two acres of wooded land north of Falls Lake that Robert inherited from his father.
He had refused to sell it for thirty years.
Diane stared at me.
“How did you get that?”
I looked at her.
“You put the camera in my house.”
A murmur moved through the room.
Her eyes flicked toward Nathan.
That tiny movement told me more than denial would have.
Robert pointed toward the television.
“What document are you signing?”
Nathan answered too quickly.
“Nothing.”
The recording continued for another second.
Diane’s voice came faintly through the television speakers.
“…once Elena is out of the way…”
Nathan lunged one instinctive step toward the console.
Robert planted himself in front of him.
“Don't.”
My husband stopped.
For nine years I had watched Nathan become the polite, successful son whenever Robert entered a room.
That son was gone.
Robert turned back toward me.
“What does she mean, out of the way?”
I could have played more.
I didn't.
I removed the USB.
“That is the question Nathan has spent three weeks trying to stop me from answering.”
Diane finally spoke from across the living room.
“Elena has been spying on this family.”
I almost laughed.
“You hid a camera in my bathroom.”
“That camera was necessary.”
“For what?”
Her chin lifted.
“To prove what you've been doing to Robert.”
Every face in the room turned toward me.
There it was.
Her intended accusation.
I looked at Robert.
“Ask her why she needed to prove I was untrustworthy before next Friday.”
Robert frowned.
“What happens next Friday?”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Diane said nothing.
I reached into my handbag and removed the copy my attorney had given me that morning.
It was not the document on the television.
It was a letter from a Raleigh title company.
Scheduled closing date:
Friday.
Property:
Mercer Ridge.
Seller:
Robert Mercer.
Robert stared at it.
“I’m not selling Mercer Ridge.”
“I know.”
He looked at his son.
May you like
Nathan’s silence answered the question before any document could.
Someone had already arranged to sell Robert’s land.
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