Chapter 5 - Mercer

Natalie Dawson lived in a narrow townhome in Sandy Springs with a toy kitchen in the corner of the living room and a stack of unopened mail on the sideboard. Her seven-year-old son was at his father’s for the weekend. She let Lucas in wearing leggings and a North Springs Middle School sweatshirt and looked like she hadn’t slept.

“You should’ve called first,” she said.

“You should’ve told me first.”

He laid copies of the Mercer invoices on her coffee table.

Natalie didn’t touch them. She only sat down slowly and tucked one foot beneath her.

“So you know,” she said.

“I know there’s a hole in my company’s books and Mom’s name all over it. I know she assaulted Gwen today because Gwen found it. What I don’t know is why your name is in the emails.”

Natalie pressed her fingers to her mouth. When she spoke, it came out thin. “Charlie Mercer.”

“That’s a why?”

“He’s not just the warehouse guy.”

Lucas felt his stomach drop. “Mom is involved with him?”

Natalie nodded.

Brenda had met Charlie at a Rotary fundraiser fourteen months earlier. He was sixty, tanned year-round, drove a white Range Rover, knew which hand to touch when he spoke. After their father died, Brenda had been drifting between church committees and charity lunches, angry at how quickly people stopped needing her. Charlie needed her. Or made her think he did.

“She said he understood business,” Natalie whispered. “She said he could help Dawson Freight get through this expansion. And she said if anyone found out before things settled, people would judge her.”

“Things settled?”

Natalie looked up. “She said today’s bank renewal would lock in the arrangement. She kept saying if Gwen got to you first, Charlie would lose everything and Mom would be ruined.”

Lucas stared at his sister.

“Why would a warehouse contract ruin her unless the contract protects him somehow?”

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Natalie started crying then, not dramatically, just like someone whose body had finally run out of ways to hold itself together.

“Because,” she said, “I think Mom promised him more than business.”