Chapter 8 - THE COUNTERATTACK
Gregory’s attorney filed fourteen motions in twelve days.
Suppress cloud location records.
Exclude repaired dashcam footage.
Challenge chain of custody.
Attack Marcus’s delayed memory.
Attack my credibility.
Attack Delaney’s involvement.
Normal defense work.
Then came the personal allegations.
Rachel Mercer manufactured a homicide theory after marital breakdown to gain financial advantage.
Gregory requested temporary control over the marital residence.
He sought an order preventing me from transferring shared assets.
Reasonable if limited to genuinely marital assets.
His filing also implied my inherited trust should be considered commingled.
Naomi answered with account tracing.
Most trust principal remained separate.
Some distributions had entered joint accounts over the years.
Those amounts could be marital property depending on state law.
We did not pretend marriage changed nothing financially.
It changed some things.
Not everything.
The court froze disputed joint assets.
My separate trust remained under its existing rules.
Gregory did not get access.
Then his attorney released a statement:
Mrs. Mercer trained extensively in combat techniques and staged an encounter designed to provoke her husband.
Combat techniques.
I laughed.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu twice a week.
Basic self-defense.
No special forces.
No assassin daughter.
The dining-room video showed who attacked.
Still, the defense had one point.
I had recorded before dinner.
I had expected conflict.
That would matter.
I admitted it.
The domestic-assault prosecutor did not rely on me appearing surprised.
They relied on the swing.
Gregory’s financial case also advanced.
The attempted $640,000 transfer was not completed.
Attempted fraud depended on whether he lacked authorization and intended to deceive.
The forged household-investment form mattered.
His assistant, Erica Sloan, testified under counsel.
“Gregory sent me Rachel’s mortgage signature page.”
“What did he ask?”
“Make the investment authority match.”
“Did you understand he wanted a signature copied?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say Rachel approved?”
“He said, ‘She will. We need paperwork ready.’”
“Did she?”
“No.”
Erica had inserted it.
She faced her own potential liability.
She cooperated.
Different role.
Different consequence.
Gregory now faced charges relating to falsified financial authorization in addition to domestic assault.
Malcolm placed him on indefinite leave from Mercer Industrial.
No family rescue.
At least not publicly.
Then Malcolm called me.
Through attorneys.
I agreed to listen.
“Rachel, I failed your father.”
Not:
I killed him.
Not:
Gregory did.
“What did you know?”
“I knew Gregory drove that road.”
“When?”
“Within a week.”
“Did you know he hit Dad?”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you tell police?”
Malcolm closed his eyes.
“Because I thought suspicion would destroy my son.”
“And Dad being dead?”
His face tightened.
“I told myself I didn’t know.”
“That sentence protected you.”
“Yes.”
No argument.
Then he gave me something.
An old envelope.
Not opened in seven years.
Gregory had left it at Malcolm’s house two days after Dad died.
Inside:
A damaged company fuel card.
A motel receipt.
And a folded note Gregory had written to himself.
Three words:
HE WOULDN’T MOVE.
I stared.
“What is this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You kept it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid I might someday need to stop lying to myself.”
The note did not say:
I hit him deliberately.
But “he wouldn’t move” sounded like more than an accident.
Detective Ellis took custody.
The forensic document examiner confirmed Gregory’s handwriting.
Then another question emerged.
Move from what?
The road?
His position?
May you like
His complaint?
The meaning would decide everything.
