Richard called me before breakfast. The investigators had made progress identifying the second phone, and they wanted to speak with Ethan about the message Brittany had sent him concerning the missing device. I was asked to attend as well, since the communications appeared to overlap with the property inquiry.
I arrived at Richard's office carrying my notebook and the folders we had assembled over the previous week. I had learned to keep the documents in chronological order, with each page marked according to where it had come from. The habit gave me something useful to do with my hands while I waited for news that could change everything.
Ethan was already there. He stood beside the window, turning his phone over in his palm. When he saw me, he put it away and came to sit beside me.
“I haven't heard from Brittany since she asked about the black phone,” he said. “I don't know whether she's staying with her friend or somewhere else.”
“Have you tried contacting her?”
“Once. I told her the investigators might want to speak with her again. She replied that she had already explained everything.”
“And did she explain the phone?”
“No. She said I should stop asking questions.”
Richard entered carrying a slim folder. He sat across from us and explained that investigators had identified a person associated with the second number. The device had not been registered in Brittany's name, but its communications and use were now being examined as part of the case.
“The number appears to have been used by a man named Paul Mercer,” Richard said. “He has a connection to the property investment business, though we still need to establish the precise nature of his involvement.”
I recognized neither the name nor the face when Richard showed us the photograph supplied by the investigators. Paul looked to be in his early forties, with close-cropped hair and a narrow, unsmiling face. He was listed as an independent property acquisition consultant who had worked with several investment firms, including Northbridge Residential Partners.
“Is he the buyer?” Ethan asked.
“Not necessarily,” Richard replied. “He appears to have acted as a contact between interested parties. That doesn't tell us what he knew about your mother's situation or whether he was involved in the airport incident.”
I studied the photograph. “Did he know Brittany personally?”
“The investigators are looking into that. There is evidence that they communicated, but the full context has not yet been established.”
Richard opened the folder and showed us a timeline. One message had been sent shortly before the night Brittany placed the pouch in my suitcase. Another was recorded at approximately the time of her whispered phone call. The content of the messages had not all been verified, but the timing suggested that Paul might be the person she had instructed to alert airport security.
Ethan leaned forward. “What did the message say?”
Richard looked at him before answering. “The investigators are verifying the complete exchange. They have reason to believe the communication concerned the planned discovery of the pouch, but they haven't released every detail to us.”
I appreciated the restraint. We had spent days working through partial explanations, and I did not want to mistake an incomplete message for a complete answer.
Later that morning, the investigator contacted Richard and arranged a formal interview. I was asked to confirm my account of the events at the airport, while Ethan was asked to explain how he had discovered the reference to the second phone. We answered separately, each giving only what we knew directly.
When I was called into the interview room, the investigator placed several printed images on the table. One showed Brittany leaving the house on the evening before my flight. Another showed a man entering a parking area near the terminal several hours later. The images were being reviewed to establish whether the people depicted were connected to the communications under investigation.
“Do you recognize this man?” the investigator asked.
I examined the photograph. “I believe that is Paul Mercer, the person my attorney identified. I've never met him.”
“Have you ever seen him at your home?”
“No.”
“Have you ever authorized him to discuss the sale of your property?”
“Absolutely not.”
He recorded my answers and then asked about the black pouch. I repeated what I had told the airport officers: I had seen Brittany place it inside the suitcase, heard her say that it was there and that airport security should be contacted at six, and preserved the recording without altering it.
The investigator explained that the medication bottles were being traced through their reported theft. He could not yet tell me who had obtained them or how they had reached Brittany. But he confirmed that the airport report and the property communications were being examined together to determine whether they were part of a coordinated plan.
When I returned to Richard's office, Ethan was waiting with his hands clasped between his knees. He had been told that the investigators wanted to establish whether he had any knowledge of Paul's involvement.
“I never met him,” Ethan said as soon as I sat down. “Brittany never mentioned his name.”
“Then that is what you should tell them,” I replied.
“I keep wondering what she told him about you.”
“So do I.”
Richard reminded us that the evidence had to answer that question. We could not assume Paul had understood Brittany's claims about my health, nor could we conclude that he had knowingly participated in a plan to implicate me simply because his number appeared in the communications.
That afternoon, Ethan received a call from Brittany. He answered on speaker only after asking whether I was comfortable being present. I agreed, and he made it clear to her that the conversation was being heard by both of us.
“Why are you involving Paul?” Ethan asked.
There was a pause.
“Who told you about Paul?”
“The investigators are examining the messages. I want to know why you contacted him about my mother's luggage.”
“You don't understand what happened.”
“Then explain it.”
Brittany's voice sharpened. “Your mother has turned an ordinary family problem into a criminal investigation. I was trying to solve the situation with the house before things got worse.”
“By putting something in her suitcase?”
“I never said that.”
“I saw the video, Brittany. I know what you did.”
The line went quiet. I could hear faint traffic in the background on her end.
Finally, she said, “The pouch was supposed to be found. It wasn't supposed to become this.”
Ethan looked at me. Neither of us spoke.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“You need to stop this,” she replied. “Tell your mother to cooperate with us. If she signs the documents, we can still settle everything.”
“Settle what?”
She ended the call.
Ethan sat motionless, staring at the phone. I felt the familiar urge to soften the moment for him, to offer an explanation that would make the words less damaging. I resisted it. Brittany had spoken without being pressed by an investigator, and her words had raised questions that needed answers.
Richard asked Ethan to write down exactly what had been said and to preserve the call details. He then contacted the investigator to report the conversation. We did not speculate about whether Brittany had admitted to a specific offense; her statement was ambiguous, but it was important.
That evening, Richard called me with a further update. The investigators had obtained additional records connected to Paul's number. They were examining messages that appeared to refer to the airport report and to a proposed meeting about my house after the planned discovery.
I sat down at the kitchen table and opened my notebook.
“What sort of meeting?” I asked.
“A meeting concerning the property, apparently. The details are still being verified. I don't want to suggest that the transaction had advanced further than the records establish.”
I thanked him and ended the call.
For a long time, I stared at the line where I had written the time of Brittany's original phone conversation: 12:17 a.m. I had spent much of my life believing that danger announced itself through obvious threats. This had begun with the quietest possible sound—the movement of a zipper in a dark bedroom.
Now the investigation was reaching beyond my house, beyond Brittany's explanations, and beyond the suitcase that had first brought the plan into view.
The next question was no longer whether Paul had been in contact with Brittany. It was what he had been told to expect at six in the morning, and what he believed would happen to me afterward.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The Plan Depended on My Silence, but One Recorded Conversation Revealed Why They Needed Me to Lose Control of My Own Home
At 12:17 A.M., I Saw My Daughter-in-Law Plant Something in My Suitcase—and Realized My Flight Was Only Part of Her Plan
Part 9 of 12
