The company attorney did not waste time with pleasantries.
“Is this Daniel Mercer’s wife?” she asked.
I looked across the hospital room at Lily beneath the warming lamp.
Her eyes had already closed again, but her tiny chest continued rising and falling beneath the blanket.
“Yes.”
“My name is Rebecca Shaw.
I represent Daniel’s employer.
We received several documents from your address concerning possible misuse of company funds.
Before we proceed, I need to confirm whether you sent them voluntarily.”
“I did.”
“And whether the files are authentic to the best of your knowledge.”
“They are.”
The attorney paused.
I heard a door close on her end of the call.
“Mrs.
Mercer, are you safe?”
The question almost broke me.
Not because I was afraid Daniel would walk through the hospital door.
He was thousands of miles away, stranded at a resort with a woman who had mocked me from a marina.
It broke me because no one had asked yet.
The nurses had checked my incision, my blood pressure, and my bleeding.
They had checked Lily’s oxygen and temperature.
Daniel had asked only what I had done to his cards.
“I’m in the maternity ward,” I said.
“My daughter was born this morning.”
There was another silence.
Then Rebecca’s voice changed.
It remained professional, but the distance disappeared.
“I understand.
We will not contact you again tonight unless necessary.
I do need to ask one urgent question.
Did Daniel have authorization to classify this trip as company travel?”
“No.”
“Was there an investor meeting in Hawaii?”
“No.”
“Do you know the woman traveling with him?”
“Vanessa Cole.
His executive assistant.”
A faint exhale came through the phone.
“Thank you.
Please preserve every original file.
Do not alter the metadata.
Our security team may contact the hotel to secure company property.”
Company property.
I remembered the laptop Daniel had packed two nights earlier.
He had told me he was taking it to the office because a client presentation might come in while I was in labor.
Instead, he had carried it to Hawaii.
“Mrs.
Mercer,” Rebecca continued, “the expense report you sent lists a meeting with a firm called Northline Capital.
That firm confirmed they have never communicated with Daniel.
The authorization code attached to the report belongs to an executive who retired eight months ago.”
Daniel had not only lied.
He had used a dead approval chain, assuming no one would inspect it closely.
I knew that kind of arrogance.
Fraud often survived because the person committing it believed routine would protect them.
The document looked ordinary, the number seemed plausible, and everyone was too busy to ask why.
