Chapter 3 - The Digital Footprint-3
By 7:00 AM, I had set up a makeshift command center in a private room adjacent to the PICU.
Connected to the hospital’s high-speed network via a virtual private network, I accessed the cloud backups of our shared home network. As a forensic analyst, I had routinely routed all incoming and outgoing internet traffic through an encrypted router installed in our basement—a detail David had completely forgotten about over the years.
I began pulling the packet logs from the last seventy-two hours.
What I found made my stomach twist into tight knots.
Theresa had not merely been staying at our home to "help." Her personal laptop had been constantly connected to an offshore server based in the Cayman Islands. Between feeding times, she had executed fourteen separate financial queries targeting my late father’s estate trust.
My father, Arthur Mercer, had been a pioneer in marine logistics. When he passed away two years ago, he left a thirty-million-dollar irrevocable trust set up exclusively for my firstborn child, managed by a tier-one wealth firm in Seattle.
According to the trust’s charter, if the child died within thirty days of birth, or if the child’s mother was legally declared mentally unfit or incapacitated, control of the trust’s execution board would automatically revert to the designated secondary trustee.
And who was listed as the secondary trustee appointed by David during our marriage negotiations?
Theresa Vance.
I leaned back in the chair, my hands shaking with controlled fury.
Theresa didn't just want a vacation in Key West. She had intentionally spiked Ethan’s formula to simulate a fatal sudden infant death syndrome, or at the very least, to provoke a nervous breakdown that would allow her to commit me to a psychiatric facility.
Once I was committed and Ethan was either dead or in state custody under her legal guardianship, Theresa would gain immediate, unrestricted access to thirty million dollars.
And David?
I opened David's search history from the night before they left.
Search Query 1: "How long does a psychiatric evaluation hold take in Oregon?"
Search Query 2: "Can a husband assume trust management if wife is committed?"
Search Query 3: "Luxury oceanfront villas Key West instant booking."
He wasn't an innocent bystander manipulated by an overbearing mother. He was a full co-conspirator. They had planned this vacation as an alibi—a way to be two thousand miles away when the "tragic event" occurred at home.
I saved every log, every IP address, and every search query, converting them into court-admissible forensic packages with cryptographic timestamps.
Then I made a call to a private investigator I had worked with during my years in Seattle—a man named Marcus Vance (no relation to David), a retired federal agent who specialized in corporate intelligence.
"Valerie," Marcus answered, his voice deep and raspy. "It's been a while. What do you need?"
"Marcus," I said softly, staring out the window at the rain falling over Portland. "I need you to deploy a team to the Sunset Breeze Resort in Key West. I want eyes, ears, and cameras on David and Theresa Vance twenty-four hours a day."
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"Consider it done," Marcus replied. "What's the play?"
"Let them enjoy their paradise for two more days," I said, a bitter smile touching my lips. "While they think I am suffocating in grief, I am going to dismantle their lives dollar by dollar."
