Chapter 8 - UNDER THE GREENHOUSE
The current owners of Briar House had no connection to the Mercer family.
They watched from the lawn as investigators removed greenhouse flooring.
The structure had been renovated twice since 2009.
But one section of concrete was older.
Ground-penetrating equipment identified a disturbance beneath it.
Excavation began.
Reeves didn't allow Ethan near the property.
He didn't need to.
At 4:17 p.m., Reeves called.
“We found human remains.”
Ethan sat down.
Lily was coloring at the kitchen table.
He looked at her.
“Claire?”
“We don't know yet.”
But Reeves's voice told him he already believed it.
The remains were beneath nearly three feet of soil.
A torn section of fabric remained.
A bracelet.
And a damaged cell phone sealed inside a plastic bag.
Someone had buried Claire deliberately.
Not in panic.
Not in darkness.
The grave had been prepared.
Covered.
Then sealed beneath concrete.
Within forty-eight hours of Claire's disappearance.
Three days later, dental records confirmed the remains.
Claire Mercer had never run away.
She had never boarded a bus.
She had never stolen her inheritance.
She had been buried beneath her own family's greenhouse while Lorraine and Victoria told police she had left voluntarily.
Ethan read the confirmation twice.
Then Ruth called.
She couldn't speak.
For sixteen years, she had wondered whether Claire was somewhere in the world choosing not to come home.
That hope was gone.
But so was uncertainty.
“I can bury her now,” Ruth finally said.
Ethan stared out the window.
“Yes.”
Investigators arrested Lorraine Mercer the following morning.
She was sixty-one.
Her photograph appeared across local news broadcasts.
Victoria wasn't arrested immediately.
Her attorney negotiated an interview.
She admitted lying to police in 2009.
She admitted helping Lorraine establish the runaway story.
She admitted accepting distributions from the trust after Claire was declared dead.
But she denied participating in Claire's death.
Marcus Vale had died five years earlier.
That left Lorraine.
Victoria.
And forensic evidence.
Detectives recovered something from Claire's damaged phone.
The memory card was partially readable.
One audio file had survived.
It lasted eleven seconds.
Claire's voice:
“Get away from me.”
A man's voice, believed to be Marcus:
“Just sign it.”
Lorraine:
“You're not destroying this family over money.”
Then a crash.
The recording ended.
The cause of Claire's death was determined to be blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull.
Investigators believed she struck the stone edge of the lake-house fireplace during the confrontation.
That meant Claire may have died before her body ever returned to Briar House.
Victoria's account had not yet explained one thing.
May you like
If Claire died at the lake house—
how did the pendant end up with Victoria?
