I Came Home in Secret to Catch the Woman I Trusted. The Cameras Revealed the Monster Had Been Sleeping Beside Me.105
Claire looked exhausted.
“Because Sophie discovered him.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Yes, it does.”
She leaned closer.
“Your wife wasn’t his first problem.”
My skin prickled.
“What does that mean?”
Claire looked toward the guard.
Then back at me.
“Ask what happened to my mother.”
The call ended.
She hung up.
And walked away.
Elaine Whitmore had supposedly died of an overdose sixteen years earlier.
At least, that was the story Daniel told Claire.
There was no death certificate.
No burial record.
No cremation record.
Nothing.
Because Elaine Whitmore wasn’t dead.
We found her forty-eight hours later in Oregon.
Living under the name Elaine Foster.
When detectives contacted her, she agreed to return to California immediately.
I met her in a prosecutor’s conference room.
She was sixty-four.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
She had Claire’s eyes.
She carried a file box.
The moment she saw me, she began crying.
“You look like him.”
“Who?”
“Robert.”
My father.
I sat across from her.
“You were married to Daniel?”
“For nine years.”
“Why does Claire think you’re dead?”
Elaine closed her eyes.
“Because Daniel told her I was.”
“Why?”
“Because I left.”
She gripped her hands together.
“I found out what he was doing.”
“The stealing?”
“Before that.”
“What?”
Elaine opened the box.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
All written by my father.
To Evelyn Hale.
Daniel’s mother.
I read the first.
Then the second.
Then the third.
My understanding of my father shifted again.
The letters acknowledged Daniel.
Asked to see him.
Offered financial support.
Begged Evelyn to allow contact.
But every letter had been returned unopened.
Elaine whispered, “Robert didn’t abandon Daniel.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Evelyn did.”
“Why?”
“She hated him.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
Elaine pushed another document toward me.
A court petition.
Robert Mercer had petitioned for visitation rights in 1971.
Denied.
Then appealed.
Denied again.
Then established a trust.
The trust still existed.
Worth approximately sixty-two million dollars.
Beneficiary:
Daniel Alexander Hale.
My mouth went dry.
“He had money?”
“He always had money,” Elaine said.
“Then why—”
“He didn’t know.”
I stared.
