Chapter 7
Brooks saw the name.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then Daniel raised his gun.
“Agent Brooks, step away.”
Brooks stared at him.
“What?”
“Step away from Judith.”
Her eyes moved toward the ledger in my hands.
Understanding hit her.
“You found my name.”
Claire backed away from her.
Judith began laughing.
“I told you.”
Brooks slowly raised both hands.
“Daniel, lower your weapon.”
“No.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Then explain the payments.”
Brooks looked at me.
“How much is listed?”
I read the first entry.
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“Date?”
I told her.
Her jaw tightened.
“Next one.”
“Forty thousand.”
“Date?”
I read it.
She exhaled.
“Those aren’t payments to me.”
Judith laughed harder.
Brooks ignored her.
“My maiden name is Natalie Mercer.”
I stared.
Daniel’s gun remained raised.
“Mercer?”
“Samuel Mercer is my father.”
The medical examiner.
The man who helped fake Richard Hale’s death.
Claire whispered, “You knew?”
Brooks shook her head.
“Not until six years ago.”
I held up the ledger.
“Then why is your name here?”
“Because my father transferred money into accounts he created in my name.”
Judith called out, “How convenient.”
Brooks turned.
“Shut up.”
Judith smiled.
“You always were an ungrateful child.”
Brooks froze.
Claire looked between them.
“You know each other?”
Brooks stared at Judith.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Judith answered first.
“I paid for her education.”
Brooks’s face hardened.
“No. My father told me scholarships paid for it.”
Judith smiled.
“Your father told you many things.”
Daniel finally lowered his weapon slightly.
“Brooks, we need the entire story.”
Firefighters rushed around us.
The warehouse burned behind them.
Brooks looked exhausted.
“My father was part of Richard and Judith’s network. I discovered irregularities after I joined the state bureau.”
“You investigated your own father?”
“Quietly.”
“Why not report it?”
“I did.”
“To who?”
“My supervisor.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Judith laughed again.
“That must have been frustrating.”
Brooks stepped toward her.
“Was my supervisor on your payroll?”
Judith smiled.
“Everyone has a price.”
Brooks looked sick.
I closed the ledger.
“We need to get this somewhere secure.”
“No police station,” Daniel said.
“No state office either,” I added.
Brooks looked at us.
“You don’t trust me.”
“Should we?”
“No.”
Her answer surprised me.
“You shouldn’t trust anyone until we verify every name in that book.”
She looked at Judith.
“Including me.”
That was the first thing she had said that made me trust her a little more.
Claire was taken to a secure medical facility.
This time, two state troopers chosen directly by an outside commander guarded her.
Ethan was brought to her under escort.
I stood outside the room when they reunited.
The moment he saw her, he ran.
“Mommy!”
Claire dropped to her knees despite her injuries.
“My baby.”
He crashed into her arms.
They both cried.
I looked away.
Daniel pretended he had something in his eye.
Twenty minutes later, Claire asked us to come inside.
Ethan sat beside her on the bed.
“Is Grandma going to jail?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“For a long time?”
“That’s up to a judge.”
He thought about that.
“Can she come get Mommy again?”
“No.”
Claire looked at me.
I hoped I wasn’t lying.
Ethan held his mother’s hand.
“Is Mark bad?”
Claire struggled with the answer.
“Yes.”
“But he said sorry.”
“When?”
“In the shed.”
Claire frowned.
“What?”
“The night he locked you in.”
Ethan looked confused.
“He came back.”
Claire stared at him.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Ethan, when?”
“After Grandma left.”
The room went silent.
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He opened the shed.”
Claire shook her head.
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were sleeping.”
Ethan continued.
“He put the phone by you.”
Daniel and I exchanged a look.
Claire’s phone had been recording.
Mark placed it there.
“He told me to run,” Ethan said.
Claire covered her mouth.
“He said go to the police station and don’t stop.”
That changed everything.
Mark had helped Judith imprison Claire.
He had hurt Ethan.
But sometime during the night, he had turned against Judith.
“He unlocked the shed?” Daniel asked.
Ethan shook his head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He said Grandma would know.”
“So he left your mom locked inside?”
Ethan nodded sadly.
“He said police would come.”
I understood.
Mark had planted the recording phone, sent Ethan to us, and hoped we would discover Claire.
“He knew he was being watched,” I said.
Claire looked devastated.
“Then they killed him.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
When he returned, his expression was grim.
“The medical examiner finished the preliminary report on Mark.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“What?”
“He was shot at close range.”
“Anything else?”
Daniel hesitated.
“The transport driver was found.”
“Dead?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“At a motel two counties away.”
My pulse quickened.
“Name?”
“Officer Thomas Reed.”
I knew Reed.
He had worked at our department for eleven years.
Quiet.
Reliable.
Married.
Two daughters.
“He shot Mark?”
“He denies it.”
“Of course.”
“He says someone hijacked the transport vehicle.”
“Who?”
“He claims he never saw the person’s face.”
I thought of the ledger.
“Is Reed’s name in the book?”
Daniel nodded.
I felt cold.
“How much?”
“Over ninety thousand dollars.”
We left Claire with Ethan and met Brooks in a conference room.
The red ledger lay inside a sealed evidence container.
A federal public-corruption team had arrived.
No one from our local department was allowed access.
Brooks had voluntarily surrendered her weapon and credentials while her connection was investigated.
She sat across from us.
“My father is missing.”
“What?”
“Samuel Mercer didn’t report to work today. His house is empty.”
Daniel leaned back.
“Running?”
“Maybe.”
“Or dead,” I said.
Brooks nodded.
“We found blood in his garage.”
Claire’s family network was collapsing.
And people were disappearing faster than we could question them.
A federal investigator opened the ledger.
“We have twenty-seven names.”
He pointed to several.
“Three judges. Five police officers. Two prosecutors. A building inspector. A bank manager.”
Then he tapped another entry.
“This one concerns me.”
The name was listed only as E.H.
Payments began eighteen years earlier.
Much earlier than Captain Harris.
Much larger amounts.
“Who is E.H.?” I asked.
“No idea.”
Judith refused to speak.
Richard demanded immunity.
Laura wanted an attorney.
Captain Harris claimed he only knew a few people.
Then Daniel noticed something.
“The dates.”
“What about them?”
He pointed.
“Every payment to E.H. happens within forty-eight hours of a Hale Development land purchase.”
The federal investigator searched property records.
Dozens of deals appeared.
Cheap land purchased shortly before city rezoning decisions.
The value then multiplied.
Inside information.
Political corruption.
But one property stood out.
A large parcel near the river.
Purchased nineteen years ago.
Sold six months later for twelve times the price.
Daniel looked at the buyer.
“Mercy Children’s Foundation.”
I frowned.
“A charity?”
The investigator searched deeper.
The foundation had dissolved seventeen years ago.
Its executive director had been a woman named Eleanor Hayes.
E.H.
We searched photographs.
An older woman appeared.
Elegant.
Dark hair.
A familiar face, though younger.
Claire entered the room behind us.
She had insisted on answering additional questions after Ethan fell asleep.
When she saw the photograph, she stopped.
“No.”
I turned.
“You know her?”
Claire stared at the screen.
“That’s my grandmother.”
Judith’s mother.
Eleanor Hayes.
According to public records, Eleanor had died twelve years ago.
Another funeral.
Another death certificate signed by Samuel Mercer.
Claire backed toward the wall.
“No.”
Daniel whispered, “Please don’t tell me.”
I already knew what he was thinking.
Richard Hale had supposedly died.
He was alive.
Now Eleanor Hayes had also supposedly died under the signature of the same medical examiner.
I looked at Claire.
“Did you see your grandmother’s body?”
Her eyes widened.
“Closed casket.”
The room went silent.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Something told me not to.
“Hello?”
An elderly woman spoke.
“Officer Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been asking questions about my family.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
“Who is this?”
The woman laughed softly.
“You already know.”
Claire stared at me.
I put the phone on speaker.
“Eleanor?”
Claire gasped.
The woman continued.
“Judith always was careless when she became emotional.”
Claire whispered, “Grandma?”
Silence.
Then Eleanor said, “Hello, Claire.”
Claire began crying.
“You’re alive?”
“For the moment.”
“Where are you?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“What do you want?”
Eleanor’s voice became colder.
“My daughter has embarrassed this family.”
Judith.
“Richard has become reckless.”
“And you?” I asked.
“I clean up mistakes.”
My stomach tightened.
“Did you kill Mark?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“That answer would cost you.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Everything is a negotiation.”
Claire stepped closer.
“Why are you calling?”
Eleanor paused.
“Because Ethan has something that belongs to me.”
Claire looked toward her son’s room.
“What?”
“He doesn’t know he has it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Eleanor’s voice softened.
“Ask him about the missing shoe.”
Then she ended the call.
I stared at Claire.
Ethan had arrived at the station wearing one shoe.
We had assumed he lost the other while running.
Claire rushed into his room.
Ethan was asleep.
She gently woke him.
“Baby?”
He blinked.
“What?”
“Where did you lose your shoe yesterday?”
His face changed.
“I didn’t.”
Daniel crouched.
“What happened to it?”
Ethan looked at his mother.
“Mark took it.”
“Why?”
“He put something inside.”
My pulse jumped.
“What?”
“A little silver thing.”
“Where is the shoe now?”
Ethan rubbed his eyes.
“He gave it back before I ran.”
“But you came to the station with one shoe.”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“In the flower box outside the police station.”
Daniel and I ran.
The flower box sat beside the front entrance.
We dug through the soil.
Nothing.
Then my fingers struck something hard.
A child’s sneaker.
Mud-covered.
Hidden deep beneath the flowers.
I pulled it out.
Inside the sole was a small cut.
Daniel pried it open.
A silver USB drive fell into his palm.
Mark hadn’t only sent Ethan to the police.
He had sent evidence.
May you like
Evidence everyone was willing to kill for.
And somehow Eleanor knew it existed.
