Chapter 4 - The Deposition of Truth
The conference room at Vance & Associates did not look like the corporate boardroom at Crescent Development.
It was lined with dark walnut bookshelves filled with centuries of North Carolina legal reporters. The large conference table was solid marble, cold and unforgiving.
Rachel sat at the head of the table.
She wore a tailored black wool dress with long sleeves and a simple silver necklace. Her face was pale, her cheekbones sharper than they had been two weeks ago, but her posture was straight as an iron rod. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant chignon. Beside her sat Sarah Vance, surrounded by four thick, leather-bound binders.
Across the table sat Daniel and his court-appointed legal counsel, a tired-looking family law attorney named Robert Miller.
Beside Daniel sat Elaine Mercer.
Elaine looked as though she had aged ten years in fourteen days. Her designer linen blouse was slightly wrinkled, her diamond rings hung loosely on her thin fingers, and she refused to look Rachel in the eye, keeping her gaze pinned to the water glass in front of her.
Daniel looked catastrophic.
His skin had taken on a grayish, waxy sheen. He had lost at least fifteen pounds; his suit jacket hung off his shoulders like a shroud. His eyes were bloodshot, haunted, tracking Rachel’s every breath with a sickening mixture of guilt and longing.
“We are on the record,” Sarah Vance said, gesturing to the court reporter seated in the corner. “This is the deposition of Daniel Mercer and Elaine Mercer in the matter of *Mercer v. Mercer*, Mecklenburg County District Court.”
Sarah leaned back in her high-backed leather chair, her sharp eyes fixing on Elaine.
“We will begin with the third-party respondent, Mrs. Elaine Mercer.”
Elaine flinched. Her attorney, Robert Miller, held up a hand. “Ms. Vance, Mrs. Mercer is only here voluntarily to provide context regarding the communication timeline. She is not a named party in the divorce.”
“She is a named co-defendant in our civil tort claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress,” Sarah countered instantly, her voice flat and lethal. “And she will answer my questions under oath, or we will take this matter before Judge Whitlock this afternoon for a contempt hearing.”
Miller sighed and tapped Elaine’s arm. “Answer the questions truthfully, Elaine.”
Sarah leaned forward, opening the first binder. She pulled out a high-resolution printout of a cellular screenshot and slid it across the marble table, stopping it directly in front of Elaine.
“Mrs. Mercer, do you recognize this text message exchange?”
Elaine looked down. Her lip twitched.
“It appears to be a message from Rachel,” Elaine said, her voice barely audible.
“Read it aloud for the record, please,” Sarah commanded.
“I… I don't think that’s necessary—”
“Read the timestamp, and read the text, Mrs. Mercer,” Sarah said, her voice rising half an octave, sharp as a whip.
Elaine swallowed hard. Her trembling hand touched the paper.
“Timestamp: Thursday, May 11, 7:58 P.M.,” Elaine read, her voice cracking. “Message from Rachel: *I’m bleeding. An ambulance is coming. Something is wrong with the baby.*”
“And what did you do upon receiving that text message, Mrs. Mercer?”
“I… I didn't see it immediately,” Elaine stammered.
“You didn't see it?” Sarah pulled a second document from the binder. “This is a certified record from Verizon Wireless, subpoenaed under court order. It shows that at 7:59 P.M.—exactly fifty-four seconds after receiving Rachel’s message—you opened the text. You read it. And then, at 8:01 P.M., you called your sister in Atlanta and spoke to her for forty-two minutes about an antique sideboard you were planning to bid on at an estate sale.”
The room went deathly quiet.
Daniel slowly turned his head to stare at his mother.
His eyes were wide, dilated with horror. “Mom?” he whispered. “You… you read it?”
“Daniel, please,” Elaine whimpered, shrinking back into her chair. “I thought she was exaggerating! You know how she gets when she feels neglected! She was angry about the pet boarding receipt! I thought she was trying to force me to track you down so she could scream at you about Madison!”
“My son died at 9:14 P.M., Elaine,” Rachel spoke for the first time.
Her voice was not loud. It was terrifyingly calm. It fell into the silent room with the weight of an anchor dropping into deep water.
Elaine finally looked at Rachel. Her eyes filled with frantic, defensive tears. “Rachel, I am so sorry for your loss. You know I loved that baby. I had already bought the silver crib set! I had—”
“You did not love him,” Rachel said, her gaze steady, cold, and absolute. “You loved the idea of a grandson carrying the Mercer name. But when his mother was bleeding to death on a kitchen floor, you decided that protecting your son’s illicit weekend in Savannah was more important than my child’s life.”
“I didn't know he was in Savannah!” Elaine shrieked. “Daniel lied to me too!”
“You knew,” Rachel said simply. “Because at 6:15 P.M. on Thursday, before the bleeding even started, I sent you the hotel tag from the Bohemian. And you texted me: *Corporate retreats change venues all the time. Stop humiliating yourself.*”
Elaine’s face crumpled. She covered her mouth with both hands, letting out a muffled, strangled sob.
Sarah Vance turned the page in the binder.
“Now, Mr. Mercer,” Sarah said, turning her attention to Daniel.
Daniel flinched as if he had been slapped. “Rachel,” he choked out, ignoring Sarah completely. “Rachel, please look at me. Just look at me once.”
Rachel looked at him.
Her eyes were completely empty. There was no hatred in them. No fury. No lingering ember of affection.
There was only the cold, vast nothingness of a stranger looking at an discarded object on the side of a road.
“I am looking at you, Daniel,” Rachel said.
“I didn't want this,” Daniel sobbed, tears streaming freely down his gaunt cheeks, dripping onto his silk tie. “I swear to you on my life, on my soul, on Owen’s memory—I didn't want any of this. I made a stupid, pathetic, cowardly mistake. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like I wasn't enough for you, for the baby, for the firm. I wanted to escape for just a few days. I never meant to hurt you.”
“You didn't just hurt me, Daniel,” Rachel said, her voice dropping into a register that made the court reporter pause for a fraction of a second. “You abandoned us. You spent one hundred and sixty-eight hours pretending we didn't exist.”
Sarah Vance slid a document across to Daniel’s attorney.
“This is our final settlement offer, Mr. Miller,” Sarah said briskly. “It is not open for negotiation. It is a take-it-or-leave-it proposal.”
Robert Miller scanned the pages, his eyes widening. “Ms. Vance… this isn't an equitable distribution. This is a total liquidation.”
“What is it?” Daniel asked, his voice shaking. “What does it say?”
“It says,” Sarah stated clearly, “that you surrender the SouthPark marital residence to Mrs. Mercer with zero equity compensation. You surrender your fifty-percent share in the Vanguard joint investment portfolio. You assume one hundred percent of the remaining marital debt, including the renovation loan on the house. You surrender your executive pension rights to the maximum extent permitted by state law. And you sign an irrevocable release of all parental rights and claims regarding the disposition and memorialization of Owen Mercer’s remains.”
Daniel’s head jerked up.
“No,” he gasped. “No! You can take the house! Take the money! Take everything! I don't care about the firm, I don't care about the stocks! But not Owen. Rachel, please. He’s my son. Let me have half of his ashes. Let me put a stone in the ground for him. Please!”
Rachel leaned forward across the marble table.
The movement was so deliberate, so quiet, that Daniel instinctively held his breath.
“You weren't there when he was born, Daniel,” Rachel whispered. “You weren't there when I held his cold body against my chest for twenty minutes before they took him to the morgue. You weren't there when I signed the authorization to have him cremated. You were in Savannah, drinking champagne with Madison Reed.”
She stood up.
She stood tall, her black dress falling perfectly around her frame, her hands resting quietly at her sides.
“You do not get to be his father in death,” she said, her voice ringing off the walnut shelves, “when you refused to be his father in life.”
Daniel collapsed onto the table, his arms wrapping around his head, his chest heaving with violent, uncontrolled sobs that shook the heavy wood.
Robert Miller looked across at Sarah Vance, then down at his broken, ruined client.
Miller picked up his pen and slid the document toward Daniel.
“Sign it, Daniel,” Miller said quietly. “Sign it today. Because if Sarah Vance takes this into a courtroom in front of twelve jurors in Mecklenburg County… they won't just take your assets. They will take your very skin.”
Daniel’s hand shook so violently he could barely hold the pen.
May you like
Tears fell onto the white paper, smearing the ink of his signature, but he signed every single line.
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