Chapter 1 - The Birthday Dinner That Never Began
The bowl hit Linda Mercer before she had both feet inside her son’s house.
Chicken broth splashed across her floral blouse, her silver curls, and the birthday gift she had been carrying against her chest. Robert caught his wife by the elbow as she stumbled on the polished hardwood.
For one shocked second, neither of them understood what Rachel had done.
Then Rachel laughed.
“Look at you. Even covered in garbage, you still don’t know when you’re unwanted.”
Linda’s face changed more from the words than from the soup.
The Mercers had driven forty minutes from their modest ranch house in Joliet to Daniel and Rachel’s home in Naperville for Daniel’s thirty-seventh birthday. Linda had baked the chocolate cake herself because Daniel still preferred the recipe she had used when he was a boy.
Now frosting showed through the clear plastic lid while soup dripped onto the ribbon.
Robert stepped in front of his wife.
“Rachel, that’s enough.”
Rachel dropped the empty serving bowl at Linda’s feet.
“Get out before you stink up the rest of my house.”
The front door slammed open behind them.
Daniel entered carrying a grocery bag.
He saw his mother soaked.
His father standing between her and Rachel.
The shattered expression on Linda’s face.
“What happened?”
Rachel lifted one hand as if Daniel were an inconvenience she could dismiss.
“Your parents showed up where they weren’t wanted.”
Daniel knocked her hand aside.
The confrontation turned physical for one terrible instant before he forced himself between Rachel and his parents.
“You humiliate my parents in my house again,” he said, “and you leave with nothing.”
Rachel straightened her cream dress.
Then she smiled.
Not apologetic.
Almost amused.
“They should be grateful I let people like them through the front door.”
Daniel took one step toward her.
Something slipped from the pocket hidden along the side seam of Rachel’s dress.
A black envelope.
It struck the floor between them.
Rachel looked down.
Every trace of arrogance disappeared.
She lunged.
Daniel reached it first.
“Give me that.”
He stared at her.
Rachel grabbed his wrist.
“Daniel, don’t.”
He tore the envelope open.
Her voice cracked.
“Your father was never supposed to see what’s in there.”
Behind Daniel, Robert stopped moving.
Daniel pulled out several pages.
The first line contained Robert Mercer’s full legal name.
May you like
The second contained a loan number Daniel had never seen.
And beneath it was a demand for payment of $286,400.
