Chapter 11 - The Ultrasound and the Ultimatum
By Sunday evening, my bags were packed.
The moving trucks had already transported my personal belongings to a gorgeous penthouse apartment I had leased in downtown Charlotte. The Raleigh developer had signed the purchase agreement for the farmhouse at five hundred and ninety thousand dollars, with the closing scheduled for the following Friday.
I stood in the center of the empty farmhouse living room, watching the sun dip below the horizon, painting the Carolina sky in streaks of deep violet and fiery gold. The echoing rooms were peaceful now, purged of the toxicity that had poisoned my marriage.
My phone rang. It was Jonathan Drake.
"Tessa," Jonathan said, his voice unusually sharp and urgent. "Are you still at the ridge?"
"Just doing a final walkthrough before I head to Charlotte," I said, locking the back French doors. "Why? Did the closing documents run into a snag?"
"No, the closing is clean," Jonathan said, lowering his voice. "It’s about Judith Mercer’s preliminary bail hearing tomorrow morning. The district attorney’s office just received an emergency motion filed by Marcus Vance’s legal team."
I frowned, feeling a chill run down my spine. "I thought Marcus distanced himself from Judith."
"He did publicly," Drake replied grimly. "Privately, he’s trying to suppress a piece of evidence seized from Judith’s home safe during the arrest. Tessa... the state investigators found a secondary safe-deposit box key and an encrypted flash drive inside Judith’s bedroom."
"What was on the drive?"
"We don't have the full decryption yet," Drake said, "but the preliminary forensic sweep shows records connecting Apex Logistics to a series of commercial real estate payoffs involving county zoning commissioners. And Nolan's signature is all over the corporate minutes. If that drive is submitted into public record, Nolan won't just be broke—he’s looking at five to seven years in federal prison for racketeering."
I took a deep breath. "Nolan made his bed, Jonathan. Let him burn with her."
"That’s not the only thing," Drake added, his voice hesitating. "The safe also contained a sealed envelope addressed directly to you. The DA opened it under the warrant scope. Tessa... it’s an original certified paternity analysis dated three weeks ago."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "Paternity? For Brianna’s baby?"
"Yes," Jonathan said quietly. "Nolan isn't the father. The biological match belongs to someone else."
Before I could process the words, a loud, violent pounding rattled the front door of the farmhouse.
I froze. "Jonathan, hold on. Someone’s at the door."
"Tessa, don't open it!" Drake warned through the receiver. "Wyatt pulled his security crew an hour ago! Call the sheriff!"
I slowly walked down the short hallway toward the foyer. The front windows were covered with blackout paper, but through the narrow glass side panel, I saw a silhouette standing on the porch under the single exterior bulb.
It wasn't Nolan.
It was Brianna.
She was pounding on the glass with both fists, her hair soaking wet from a sudden summer drizzle, her face pale, streaked with mascara. She was clutching a thick yellow manila envelope to her chest, her body shivering violently.
"Tessa! Please!" Brianna’s muffled voice cracked through the heavy oak door. "Open the door! Please, you have to help me!"
I kept the heavy security deadbolt locked. I cracked the peephole open. "Brianna, get off this property before I call Sheriff Vance."
"No! Please, don't call Vance!" Brianna screamed, pressing her face against the glass pane, her eyes wide with terror. "Vance is the reason I’m here! Thomas Vance... the Sheriff!"
The world stopped spinning for a fraction of a second.
*Sheriff Thomas Vance.* The man who had been Judith’s lifelong friend. The man who had tried to intimidate me off the property. The man whose name was on the paternity test.
"Nolan took the company safe from his mother’s house an hour ago," Brianna sobbed, her voice trembling with hysteria. "He broke Judith’s bedroom lock and took everything! He knows the baby isn't his, Tessa! He has a gun, and he took the master titles to the entire Mercer estate—and he’s coming here!"
Before I could react, the harsh glare of high-beam headlights swept across the gravel driveway through the trees.
May you like
A heavy truck engine roared in the darkness, accelerating hard toward the front of the house, followed by the deafening sound of wood splintering as the vehicle rammed directly into the wooden entry gates.
"He’s here," Brianna whispered, staring into the dark yard with sheer, paralyzing horror. "Tessa... he’s going to kill us both."
