My wife got pulled over for speeding, and after the officer checked her license
PART 2
For several seconds, I could hear nothing except the low hum of Detective Mercer’s computer.
My father’s name glowed on the screen.
DANIEL BROOKS — ACCESS VERIFIED — 8:14 A.M.
I read it again.
Then a third time.
The letters refused to rearrange themselves into anything reasonable.
“My father has been dead for eleven years.”
Mercer did not look surprised.
“That’s what his death certificate says.”
I turned toward him sharply.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He closed the office door.
The click of the lock sounded much louder than it should have.
“It means,” he said slowly, “that either somebody is using your father’s credentials…”
He paused.
“…or Daniel Brooks never died.”
A cold sensation crawled across the back of my neck.
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was screaming.
“I buried him.”
“I know.”
“I stood beside his coffin.”
“I know.”
“I watched them lower him into the ground.”
Mercer nodded.
“Did you ever see his body?”
The question hit harder than it should have.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
My father had supposedly died in a highway accident outside Columbus. The car had burned badly. Authorities told us identification had been made through dental records.
There had been a sealed coffin.
My mother had already been dead for years, so I had handled the arrangements myself.
I remembered standing beside that polished mahogany box in the rain.
Rebecca had held my hand through the entire funeral.
Rebecca.
Suddenly, that memory felt contaminated.
“No,” I whispered.
Mercer folded his arms.
“That’s what I thought.”
I stared at him.
“You investigated my father?”
“Not originally.”
“Then how do you know all this?”
He pulled another file from a locked drawer.
This one was thinner.
Older.
The label read:
COLE HOMICIDE — SUPPLEMENTAL PERSONS OF INTEREST
Mercer opened it.
Inside was a photograph of my father.
Not the gray-haired man I remembered from his final years.
This picture had been taken much earlier.
He was maybe forty.
Standing beside a police cruiser.
Smiling.
And next to him stood Margaret Ellis.
My mother-in-law.
I felt the room tilt again.
“No.”
Mercer said nothing.
“That can’t be real.”
“It is.”
“My father never knew Margaret.”
Mercer’s eyes held mine.
“Apparently, he did.”
I snatched up the photograph.
On the back, someone had written a date.
August 17, 2011.
Fifteen years ago.
The same summer Hannah Cole disappeared.
The same summer Hannah Cole supposedly became Rebecca Ellis.
My wife.
“What was my father doing in Ohio?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to determine.”
“He worked insurance claims.”
“That’s what you were told.”
I looked at him.
Mercer reached for another page.
“Daniel Brooks spent nineteen years with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.”
My fingers went numb.
“No.”
“He left six months before the Cole murders.”
“No.”
“His personnel records were sealed afterward.”
“My father was never a detective.”
Mercer’s expression barely changed.
“Nathan, your father was one of the best missing-person investigators in this state.”
I stood frozen beside the desk.
Bits of childhood memory began breaking loose.
My father leaving suddenly at night.
The locked cabinet in his study.
The way he never discussed work.
The police scanner he claimed belonged to a friend.
The old photograph of him wearing a shoulder holster that I had once found and been told was from a
Halloween party.
I sat down.
“What happened to Hannah’s parents?”
Mercer turned serious.
“Robert and Elaine Cole were found shot in their kitchen.”
“Robbery?”
“Nothing was taken.”
“Enemies?”
“None that investigators could prove.”
“And Hannah?”
“Gone.”
He slid a crime-scene diagram toward me.
“There were signs somebody had packed a bag for her. Clothes missing. Medication missing. School records gone.”
“So she ran.”
“That was the original theory.”
“But?”
“But there was blood in her bedroom.”
I looked up.
Mercer continued.
“Not enough to indicate a fatal injury. But enough to suggest violence.”
My stomach twisted.
“Was it Hannah’s?”
“Yes.”
I thought of Rebecca’s eyebrow scar.
A small pale line she said she had gotten falling off a bicycle when she was twelve.
“How did the trooper recognize her?”
“He didn’t recognize Rebecca Brooks.”
Mercer tapped Hannah’s photograph.
“He recognized Hannah Cole.”
“How?”
“His older sister attended school with her. Hannah’s disappearance became one of those cases people in
Dayton never forgot.”
I stared at the photograph again.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Not similar.
Not close.
It was Rebecca.
The girl I had married.
The woman who slept beside me.
The mother of—
My breath stopped.
Our daughter.
“Emily.”
Mercer frowned.
“What?”
“My daughter.”
I pulled out my phone.
There were no missed calls.
No messages.
Emily was twelve years old and spending the week at science camp outside Louisville.
Suddenly, three hours away seemed like another continent.
“I need to call her.”
Mercer nodded.
“That’s different. Call the camp.”
I did.
My fingers trembled so badly I nearly dropped the phone.
A counselor answered.
I identified myself and asked for Emily.
There was a short delay.
Then my daughter’s cheerful voice came through.
“Dad?”
The sound nearly broke me.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Why are you calling? Did Mom forget something?”
I closed my eyes.
“No. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“You’re weird.”
A laugh escaped me.
“Probably.”
“Are you okay?”
Children notice more than adults think.
“I’m fine. You having fun?”
“Yeah. We built rockets yesterday. Mine went sideways and almost hit Mr. Wallace.”
“Sounds successful.”
She laughed.
That laugh had always sounded like Rebecca’s.
Now I hated myself for noticing.
“Listen,” I said. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Okay.”
“Stay with your counselors today. Don’t leave camp with anyone except me.”
A pause.
“Not even Mom?”
My throat tightened.
“Not unless I call you first.”
“Dad…”
“It’s just a precaution.”
Another pause.
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
When I ended the call, Mercer was watching me.
“You never told Rebecca about this meeting?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I almost snapped at him.
“That’s my wife.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. We’ve been married thirteen years.”
“And if she really is Hannah Cole, then somebody helped her erase everything before you met.”
“That doesn’t mean she killed anyone.”
“I didn’t say she did.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
Mercer leaned forward.
“Nathan, I’m thinking we don’t know what happened.”
That was worse.
I pushed the photograph away.
“Tell me everything.”
He inhaled slowly.
“Your father was assigned to the Cole case unofficially shortly before he left law enforcement.”
“Why unofficially?”
“Because he knew Robert Cole.”
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
“Margaret?”
“We know she was Elaine Cole’s younger sister. We also know your father interviewed her twice before she disappeared.”
“Disappeared where?”
Mercer hesitated.
“That is where it becomes strange.”
He opened a notebook.
“For eleven months after the murders, there is no verifiable record of Margaret Ellis anywhere. No
employment. No lease. No utility bills. No bank activity.”
“And Hannah?”
“Same.”
“Then they appear together?”
“In Tennessee. Margaret leased a small apartment under her real name. With her was a sixteen-year-old niece named Rebecca.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Hannah was seventeen.”
“Exactly.”
My heart thudded.
Mercer continued.
“Birth certificate for Rebecca Ellis was issued in West Virginia.”
“So?”
“The hospital listed on it burned down twenty-two years earlier.”
I stared at him.
“Someone fabricated the record.”
“Very carefully.”
“My father?”
“We don’t know.”
But his face told me he suspected it.
I rubbed both hands across my face.
One question had been waiting behind all the others.
“What was in the file that someone accessed three nights ago?”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
“That’s why I wanted you here.”
He pulled a printed audit log from the folder.
Several entries were highlighted.
COLE CASE.
HANNAH COLE.
MARGARET ELLIS.
Then one more.
NATHAN BROOKS.
My chest tightened.
“Me?”
“Someone searched your name inside the archived investigation.”
“Why would I be in it?”
“You weren’t.”
He pointed to a timestamp.
“They searched to determine whether you were.”
I suddenly understood.
“Someone is checking what police know.”
“Yes.”
“And this morning?”
“Same credentials accessed the case again.”
Mercer turned the monitor.
“From a public library terminal fifteen minutes from your house.”
I stopped breathing.
My house.
Three hours away.
Rebecca had stayed overnight with Margaret.
Or at least that was what she had told me.
I grabbed my phone.
Mercer reached across the desk.
“Don’t.”
“I’m calling Rebecca.”
“You may alert whoever accessed that system.”
“My wife could be in danger.”
“She could also be the reason you’re in danger.”
I stared at him.
For the first time since arriving, Mercer looked genuinely afraid.
“The trooper didn’t tell you not to go home because he recognized your wife.”
“What?”
“He called me after stopping you.”
“And?”
“He ran both of your names.”
I waited.
Mercer swallowed.
“Your vehicle had already been flagged.”
The room went silent.
“Flagged by who?”
“That’s the problem.”
He rotated the monitor again.
The request showed no agency.
No department.
Only an encrypted identifier.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone had placed a silent notification on your license plate. If police ran it, they would know.”
“Know what?”
“Where you were.”
A chill spread through me.
“So the traffic stop told somebody our location.”
“Yes.”
My mind raced backward.
Rebecca checking the mirrors.
Rebecca’s white knuckles.
Rebecca suddenly deciding to stay at Margaret’s.
Maybe she had known.
Maybe she had been afraid too.
“We need to find her.”
Mercer stood.
“I already have two officers heading toward Margaret’s address.”
I immediately called Rebecca.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Margaret.
Voicemail.
“Nathan.”
“I’m going there.”
“Absolutely not.”
“That is my wife.”
“And that may be an active crime scene.”
I stared at him.
“You don’t know that.”
Before he could answer, someone knocked.
A young officer entered.
“Detective?”
Mercer turned.
The officer looked at me, then hesitated.
“What?”
Mercer asked.
“We got a response from Indiana State Police.”
Mercer’s face changed.
“About Brooks?”
The officer nodded.
“They found something.”
“What?”
The officer swallowed.
“A vehicle.”
My stomach dropped.
Mercer said, “Whose?”
“Registered to Margaret Ellis.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“Abandoned near Richmond.”
“Rebecca?”
“No occupants.”
I grabbed my jacket.
Mercer stepped in front of me.
“You’re staying here.”
“Move.”
“Nathan.”
“MOVE.”
His voice became harder.
“If the people behind this think you know something, rushing blindly toward them is exactly what they want.”
“What people?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That answer stopped being acceptable ten minutes ago.”
He stared at me.
Then his phone rang.
Mercer answered.
“Mercer.”
His expression changed within seconds.
“Repeat that.”
Silence.
“Secure it. Nobody touches anything.”
He hung up.
“What?”
Mercer looked at me.
“Margaret’s house is empty.”
“Okay.”
“The back door was open.”
My pulse accelerated.
“Any signs of a struggle?”
“No.”
He paused.
“But they found photographs burning in the fireplace.”
My skin went cold.
“What photographs?”
“Family photographs.”
Rebecca had told me she was staying there to sort old family photographs.
Mercer seemed to understand the same thing.
“They were destroying evidence,” I whispered.
“Maybe.”
“What else?”
“One photograph survived.”
“What was it?”
Mercer hesitated.
“You.”
I frowned.
“Me?”
“Taken when you were about ten.”
My stomach tightened.
“How would Margaret have a photograph of me from childhood?”
Mercer had no answer.
Then I remembered something.
A photograph from my father’s house.
Me standing beside a blue bicycle.
Age ten.
My father had taken it the summer before my mother died.
I had never shown it to Rebecca.
Never given it to Margaret.
Never posted it anywhere.
Yet somehow, it had been sitting in Margaret’s fireplace.
I sank into the chair.
“This started before I met Rebecca.”
Mercer nodded slowly.
“That would appear to be the case.”
A memory surfaced.
The first time Rebecca and I met.
A coffee shop in Nashville.
She had bumped into me near the counter and spilled half a latte down my shirt.
She laughed.
I laughed.
She bought me another coffee.
We talked for two hours.
For years, I had called it fate.
Now a horrible possibility formed.
“What if it wasn’t an accident?”
Mercer said nothing.
“What if she knew who I was?”
Still nothing.
I stood.
“She married me because of my father.”
“We don’t know that.”
I barely heard him.
Our first date.
Our engagement.
Our wedding.
Emily’s birth.
Thirteen years of Christmas mornings.
Thirteen years of private jokes.
Thirteen years of lying beside someone I believed I knew.
Could all of it have been constructed?
My phone vibrated.
A text.
Rebecca.
My heart kicked.
WHERE ARE YOU?
I stared at the screen.
Mercer moved beside me.
“Don’t answer yet.”
Another message appeared.
Nathan, please tell me where you are.
Then another.
DO NOT GO HOME.
Mercer and I looked at each other.
My fingers went cold.
A fourth message came.
They know the trooper talked to you.
Mercer grabbed his phone and started giving instructions.
I typed.
Who are they?
Three dots appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Then:
Your father’s people.
I read the words twice.
My father is dead.
Rebecca replied immediately.
No, Nathan. He isn’t.
Everything inside me seemed to stop.
Mercer reached for my phone.
“Ask where she is.”
I did.
No answer.
“Again.”
Rebecca, where are you?
Nothing.
Then the phone rang.
Rebecca.
I answered.
“Rebecca?”
At first, all I heard was breathing.
Then her voice.
“Nathan.”
She was crying.
I had heard my wife cry at funerals.
At our daughter’s birth.
When her dog died.
This was different.
This was terror.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Is Margaret with you?”
Silence.
“Rebecca?”
“She’s gone.”
My chest tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me what is happening.”
“I wanted to.”
“Wanted to what?”
“Tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Another silence.
Then she whispered:
“My name was Hannah.”
The words still cut even though I had already known.
I sat down.
Mercer began recording the call.
Rebecca continued.
“I was Hannah Cole.”
“Did you kill your parents?”
Her breath caught.
“No.”
“Did Margaret?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
She started sobbing.
“My father.”
I frowned.
“Robert Cole?”
“No.”
The room suddenly felt too small.
“Nathan…”
She struggled to breathe.
“Robert Cole wasn’t my biological father.”
Mercer looked sharply at me.
“Who was?”
I asked.
Rebecca whispered two words.
“Daniel Brooks.”
I forgot how to breathe.
Mercer’s face drained of color.
“That’s impossible.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Nathan…”
“No.”
My father.
Her father.
Our—
My stomach lurched violently.
Emily.
Rebecca understood immediately.
“No! Nathan, listen to me. We’re not related.”
“What?”
“Daniel wasn’t your biological father.”
I gripped the phone.
“What are you saying?”
“Please let me explain.”
“EXPLAIN IT!”
Mercer motioned for me to lower my voice.
Rebecca cried harder.
“Daniel Brooks was assigned to investigate my mother years before the murders. They had an affair. I was
born from it. He stayed in contact secretly.”
I felt dizzy.
“And me?”
“You were adopted.”
“No.”
“You were.”
“My birth certificate—”
“Daniel created records. He knew how.”
I looked at Mercer.
Mercer was already searching his computer.
Rebecca continued.
“Your mother couldn’t have children. Daniel arranged a private adoption.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe this?”
“No. I expect you to hate me.”
“Why did you marry me?”
Silence.
That silence hurt more than anything.
“Did you know?”
I whispered.
“When we met?”
“Yes.”
The word broke something.
I stood up.
Mercer watched helplessly.
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“You came into my life deliberately.”
“Yes.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Why?”
“Because Daniel told me to.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“My father arranged our marriage?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Then explain exactly.”
“When I was seventeen, Daniel helped Margaret get me out after my mother and Robert were killed. He
gave us new identities. He told us there were dangerous people searching for me.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
“Why?”
“He said Robert Cole had been involved in something he shouldn’t have been.”
Mercer leaned toward the phone.
“What?”
Rebecca heard him.
“Who is there?”
“Detective Mercer.”
She inhaled sharply.
“Thomas?”
Mercer froze.
“You know me?”
“I know your name.”
“How?”
“Daniel talked about you.”
Mercer’s face changed.
“What did he say?”
Rebecca whispered, “He said if anything ever happened, you were the only honest detective left.”
Mercer sat back slowly.
Rebecca continued.
“Years later, Daniel contacted me again. He showed me a photograph of Nathan.”
My throat tightened.
“He told you to meet me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said you were in danger.”
“From what?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“So you married me to protect me?”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“I met you because he asked me to watch you.”
That hurt.
“But I married you because I loved you.”
I wanted to believe her.
God help me, I wanted to.
“Does Margaret know all this?”
“Most of it.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She vanished sometime during the night.”
“Why were photographs burning?”
“I didn’t burn them.”
“Then who did?”
“I woke up smelling smoke. Someone had been inside the house.”
Mercer wrote something quickly.
“Ask if anything was taken.”
I did.
Rebecca answered immediately.
“A metal box.”
“What was inside?”
“Daniel’s letters.”
My father’s letters.
“How many?”
“Years of them.”
“You kept letters from my supposedly dead father for eleven years?”
“He made me promise.”
I could hardly speak.
“Rebecca, did you know he was alive?”
Another silence.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
That single word seemed to erase the floor beneath me.
I whispered, “You knew.”
“He contacted me twice after his funeral.”
“When?”
“The last time was seven years ago.”
“And you never told me.”
“I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“No. Of him.”
Mercer leaned forward.
“Why?”
Rebecca’s voice became faint.
“Because Daniel Brooks was not the man Nathan remembers.”
I stared at the wall.
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“But you know something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
She breathed slowly.
“He ran people.”
“What does that mean?”
“Informants. Witnesses. New identities. People who needed to disappear.”
Mercer’s expression darkened.
“That was not in his official assignment.”
“No.”
Rebecca continued.
“He called it the Shelter.”
“The Shelter?”
“A network. Safe houses. identities. Police officers, judges, records clerks.”
I looked at Mercer.
He had gone completely still.
“That sounds impossible,” I said.
“It wasn’t.”
“Why was Hannah Cole part of it?”
“Because Robert found out.”
“Found out what?”
“That Daniel wasn’t just hiding innocent people.”
A chill moved through me.
Rebecca began speaking faster.
“Some of the people Daniel protected were criminals. Wealthy people. Connected people. They paid for
new lives.”
Mercer muttered something under his breath.
“My mother threatened to expose him,” Rebecca said.
“And then she died.”
“Yes.”
“Did Daniel kill them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to know.”
“I DON’T!”
Her scream burst through the phone.
Then she lowered her voice.
“I was upstairs when the shooting started.”
My anger disappeared for a moment.
“I heard Robert shouting. My mother screamed. I ran toward the stairs. Someone came up.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t see his face.”
“What happened?”
“He hit me.”
Her scar.
I touched my own eyebrow unconsciously.
“I woke up in Margaret’s car. Daniel was driving.”
Mercer looked at me sharply.
“He was there?”
Rebecca continued.
“He told me my parents were dead and that if I wanted to live, Hannah Cole had to die too.”
“So he created Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“And years later, he sent you to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I think you were leverage.”
The word landed heavily.
“Against who?”
“I don’t know.”
I started pacing.
“This morning somebody used his credentials.”
Rebecca went silent.
“You think it was him?”
“I know it was.”
“How?”
“Because I got a message.”
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
“What did it say?”
Her breathing became shaky.
“‘Bring Nathan to the old place.’”
Mercer stood abruptly.
“What old place?”
Rebecca whispered, “The Cole house.”
Mercer shook his head.
“It burned down in 2014.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “Not that place.”
“What then?”
“The cabin.”
Mercer’s expression sharpened.
“What cabin?”
“Daniel kept a place near Hocking Hills.”
I looked at Mercer.
“Do you know it?”
He shook his head.
Rebecca suddenly whispered, “Nathan, someone is coming.”
I froze.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t—”
A sound came through the phone.
A car door.
Then footsteps.
“Rebecca?”
She whispered quickly.
“Listen to me. There’s something Daniel never knew.”
“What?”
“If you see him, don’t tell him about Emily’s necklace.”
“What necklace?”
The line went dead.
“Rebecca!”
I called back.
Nothing.
Mercer was already moving.
“We trace the phone.”
Within minutes, the station became controlled chaos.
Officers moved in and out.
Phones rang.
Addresses were checked.
Mercer contacted state police.
Rebecca’s last signal came from a rural area outside Dayton.
Not far from Hocking Hills.
Then another officer rushed into the office.
“Detective.”
“What?”
“We pulled Daniel Brooks’s archived financials.”
Mercer turned.
“And?”
“There’s a property trust.”
My pulse quickened.
“Where?”
The officer handed him a sheet.
Mercer looked at the address.
His face went pale.
“What?”
I demanded.
He looked at me.
“It’s the cabin.”
We left immediately.
Mercer refused to let me drive.
Two unmarked police vehicles followed us.
Rain began falling halfway there, turning the Ohio woods into gray walls of water.
During the drive, I kept replaying Rebecca’s words.
Emily’s necklace.
Our daughter had worn the same silver heart pendant since she was six.
Rebecca had given it to her.
I had always assumed it was simply sentimental.
“What could be inside a necklace?”
Mercer asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Has Emily always had it?”
“Yes.”
“Did Rebecca ever tell you where it came from?”
“She said Margaret gave it to her.”
Mercer’s hands tightened around the wheel.
“Then it predates your marriage.”
I understood.
The necklace might have belonged to Hannah.
Or her mother.
“What if it contains something?”
“A key?”
“Storage device?”
“Evidence?”
Neither of us liked the possibilities.
The road narrowed.
Trees closed around us.
Eventually, pavement became gravel.
Then mud.
The GPS showed we were less than a mile away.
Mercer slowed.
“From here, you stay behind me.”
“I’m not waiting in the car.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“You can arrest me later.”
He gave me a hard look.
Then almost smiled.
“You really are Daniel Brooks’s son.”
“Apparently not biologically.”
The smile disappeared.
“Blood isn’t the only thing fathers leave behind.”
We reached the cabin at 4:17 p.m.
It sat at the end of a narrow clearing.
Old timber.
Rust-colored roof.
One light burning behind a curtain.
A black SUV was parked outside.
Rebecca’s car.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Police spread through the trees.
Mercer checked his weapon.
“Stay here.”
Then the cabin door opened.
An old man stepped outside.
For a second, my brain refused to understand what my eyes were seeing.
He was thinner.
His hair completely white.
His shoulders bent with age.
But I knew that face.
I knew the way he tilted his head.
The slight narrowing of the left eye.
The scar along his chin from a fishing accident when I was a child.
My father.
Daniel Brooks.
Alive.
He stood beneath the porch light and looked directly at me.
Then he smiled.
“Hello, son.”
Every story I had ever been told collapsed at once.
Mercer raised his weapon.
“Daniel! Hands where I can see them!”
My father barely looked at him.
“Thomas Mercer.”
His smile widened.
“Still following rules.”
“Hands up.”
Daniel slowly raised them.
“Where’s Rebecca?” I shouted.
His eyes shifted toward me.
“Hannah is safe.”
“Where is she?”
“Safer than you.”
“Where is Margaret?”
The smile disappeared.
“That was unfortunate.”
My blood ran cold.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing she didn’t force me to do.”
Mercer moved closer.
“Daniel, get on your knees.”
My father looked amused.
“You always did confuse authority with control, Thomas.”
Then he looked at me again.
“Nathan, did Hannah tell you about the necklace?”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Rebecca’s warning flashed through my mind.
Don’t tell him about Emily’s necklace.
I forced myself to look confused.
“What necklace?”
My father stared at me.
For a fraction of a second, something changed in his expression.
Suspicion.
Then satisfaction.
“Good.”
Mercer shouted, “Knees! Now!”
My father lowered himself slowly.
Two officers rushed forward and cuffed him.
It felt too easy.
Everything about it felt wrong.
I stepped closer.
“Where is my wife?”
Daniel looked up at me.
“The woman you call your wife spent thirteen years waiting for today.”
“What does that mean?”
He smiled sadly.
“She was never watching you for me.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“She was watching me for you.”
I stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
A sound came from inside the cabin.
A thump.
I ran toward the door.
Mercer shouted after me.
Inside, the air smelled of dust and gasoline.
“Rebecca!”
Another thump.
Back room.
I kicked the door open.
Rebecca was tied to a chair.
Alive.
Tape covered her mouth.
I rushed to her.
She shook her head violently.
Not relief.
Warning.
I pulled the tape away.
“Nathan, GET OUT!”
A click sounded behind me.
I turned.
Mercer stood in the doorway.
His gun pointed directly at my chest.
For one impossible second, neither of us moved.
“Thomas?”
Rebecca whispered.
Mercer’s expression had changed completely.
The tired detective was gone.
The concerned investigator was gone.
His face was cold.
Empty.
Outside, I heard shouting.
Then two gunshots.
Mercer closed the door.
“I’m sorry, Nathan.”
My pulse roared.
“You’re with Daniel?”
Rebecca shouted, “No!”
Mercer glanced at her.
“Daniel was trying to expose him.”
I looked from Mercer to Rebecca.
Nothing made sense.
Mercer raised the pistol slightly.
“Your father became inconvenient eleven years ago.”
“My father?”
“Daniel Brooks.”
“He isn’t my father.”
Mercer smiled.
“That is the one thing Hannah got wrong.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“What?”
Mercer’s smile widened.
“The adoption story was something Daniel invented to keep you two apart once he realized you were getting too close.”
The air left my lungs.
Rebecca went white.
“No.”
“Oh yes.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Then Rebecca and I…”
Mercer laughed softly.
“No, Nathan. Daniel isn’t Hannah’s biological father either.”
Silence.
Rebecca whispered, “You’re lying.”
“He needed Hannah to believe that so she would never search for the real man.”
“Who?”
Mercer looked at her.
“Robert Cole.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears.
“Robert was my father?”
“Biologically, yes.”
I almost collapsed from relief and horror at the same time.
Mercer continued.
“Daniel never cared who fathered whom. He cared about one thing.”
“What?”
“Evidence.”
His eyes moved toward me.
“Your mother worked with Daniel.”
“My mother?”
“She discovered the Shelter before Robert did.”
My memories of her were faint.
Warm hands.
Lavender perfume.
A song she hummed while cooking.
She had died when I was eleven.
A sudden aneurysm.
At least, that was what I had been told.
Mercer’s gun stayed steady.
“She copied the entire network.”
Rebecca gasped.
“The necklace.”
Mercer smiled.
“Exactly.”
My heart stopped.
“Emily has it.”
Mercer’s face hardened.
“Where is your daughter?”
I said nothing.
He stepped closer.
“Where is she?”
I stared at him.
Then something outside exploded.
The cabin windows shook.
Mercer turned instinctively.
Rebecca threw herself sideways, chair and all.
She crashed into his knees.
The gun fired.
The bullet tore into the wall beside my head.
I lunged.
Mercer and I hit the floor.
The gun skidded beneath a table.
He punched me hard enough to blur my vision.
I grabbed his jacket.
Rebecca screamed.
The door burst open.
Daniel stood there.
His hands were no longer cuffed.
He held a pistol.
For a moment, everyone froze.
Mercer smiled bitterly.
“Still escaping handcuffs, Daniel?”
Daniel aimed.
“You murdered Caroline.”
My mother.
Mercer’s expression flickered.
That was the answer.
My mother had not died naturally.
Daniel continued.
“You murdered Robert. Elaine. Everyone who tried to expose you.”
Mercer slowly rose.
“Nobody was going to expose anything.”
“You missed one thing.”
“What?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Nathan’s mother never put the evidence in Hannah’s necklace.”
Mercer frowned.
“Then where?”
Daniel smiled.
“She put it in Nathan.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Mercer’s face changed.
Daniel said, “Caroline knew she might die. She needed the information somewhere nobody would search.”
My mouth went dry.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
He looked directly at me.
“The scar behind your right ear.”
Without thinking, I touched it.
A thin line I had carried since childhood.
I had been told I fell from a tree.
Daniel whispered:
“You never fell from a tree.”
Mercer lunged for the gun.
A shot exploded through the cabin.
Rebecca screamed.
Someone fell.
And as smoke curled through the room, my phone began ringing.
The screen showed the science camp.
Emily.
But beneath her name was a message I had never seen before.
DEVICE EXTRACTION COMPLETE.
And suddenly I understood something terrifying.
Whatever secret my mother had hidden inside me…
someone had just found it.
