Chapter 6: The Man Who Kept Everything
Mercer was already there when we arrived.
He was sitting at a corner table with a coffee he hadn't touched and a laptop open in front of him.
He was in his late fifties—gray at the temples, a good suit now slightly wrong on him, the way clothes look when the person wearing them has had a difficult morning.
He saw us come in.
He didn't stand.
Grace sat across from him.
I sat beside her.
"You brought your attorney," Mercer said.
"You are an attorney," Grace said.
"You know how this works."
Mercer looked at me.
"You're calmer than I expected."
"You expected me to be frightened," I said.
"I expected you to be—" He stopped.
"Honestly, I didn't know what to expect.
Adrian said you were manageable.
That you'd been raised to be agreeable.
That your father had made you soft."
"My father made me thorough," I said.
Mercer looked at the laptop.
"I've been with Adrian since the beginning.
The real beginning.
Before the Blackwell Group had a name.
Before the first shell company.
Before any of it." He turned the laptop toward us.
"I drafted everything.
I told myself I was just the attorney.
That I was doing my job."
"Were you?" Grace said.
"No," Mercer said.
"I knew what the shell companies were for.
I knew the investor funds were being redirected.
I told myself the investors were sophisticated people who understood risk." He paused.
"Some of them were.
Some of them were not."
"The pension fund," I said.
Mercer's eyes moved to me.
"You know about that."
"I found a reference in one of the transaction records.
A transfer to an entity called Meridian Holdings.
I couldn't trace where Meridian's money came from."
"It came from a teachers' pension fund in Ohio," Mercer said quietly.
"Forty-seven million dollars.
Adrian had a contact on the fund's investment committee.
The contact directed the allocation.
Adrian paid him eight percent." Mercer closed his eyes briefly.
"The fund lost thirty-one million before anyone noticed."
The coffee shop was warm.
Someone at the counter was laughing at something.
An ordinary Tuesday afternoon for everyone else in the room.
"Teachers," Grace said.
Her voice was very flat.
"Retired teachers," Mercer said.
"Some of them had to go back to work.
Some of them couldn't." He opened his eyes.
"I have all of it.
The emails between Adrian and the committee contact.
The wire instructions.
The account records.
Everything."
He reached into his bag and set a hard drive on the table.
"This is a full copy of the Blackwell Group's internal server," he said.
"Eight years of records.
I made it this morning before I locked myself out of the system."
Grace looked at the hard drive.
She didn't touch it yet.
"Why?" I said.
Mercer looked at me.
"Why keep it?" I said.
"Why keep everything for eight years?
If you knew what it contained—"
"Because I was afraid of him," Mercer said.
"And because I thought, someday, I might need it." He pushed the hard drive slightly toward us.
"I was right about the second part."
Grace leaned forward.
"If we take this to the prosecutor, you understand what it means.
You will be required to testify.
Your cooperation will be considered, but you will not walk away clean.
You drafted fraudulent documents.
You had knowledge of the pension fund diversion and said nothing."
"I know," Mercer said.
"You may face disbarment.
You will likely face criminal charges of your own, reduced in exchange for full cooperation."
"I know," Mercer said again.
"I've known for a long time that this was where it ended." He looked at me.
"I just didn't know who would be sitting across from me when it did."
I looked at the hard drive on the table.
Forty-seven million dollars.
Retired teachers.
People who had worked thirty years and trusted that the money would be there.
"One question," I said.
Mercer waited.
"Adrian's first wife.
Catherine Marsh.
He cleaned out her account before he disappeared.
Eighty-three thousand dollars." I held his gaze.
"Is that in there too?"
Mercer was quiet for a moment.
"Yes," he said.
"The account transfer is documented.
Adrian routed it through a personal account before moving it offshore.
It's traceable."
"Then Cat gets her money back," I said.
"That will be up to the court," Grace said carefully.
"I know," I said.
"But it's in there.
So it's possible."
Grace picked up the hard drive.
She turned it over once in her hand.
Then she looked at Mercer.
"We're going to the prosecutor's office now," she said.
"You're coming with us."
Mercer stood up.
He buttoned his jacket.
He left the untouched coffee on the table.
At the door, he paused and looked back at me.
"For what it's worth," he said, "Adrian underestimated you badly."
May you like
"Most people did," I said.
We walked out into the afternoon.
