Chapter 4
Glass flew across the floor.
Emma screamed.
I dropped the phone.
Dad grabbed both of us and pulled us behind the kitchen island.
“Down!”
Another impact struck the wall.
Not a gunshot.
Something heavy had been thrown through the window.
Dad looked over the counter.
A brick lay on the floor surrounded by broken glass.
Something white was wrapped around it.
Paper.
The SUV outside accelerated away.
Dad started toward the front door.
I grabbed him.
“No!”
“I’m getting the plate.”
“You’re not going outside!”
Emma was shaking so badly I could feel it through her whole body.
That stopped him.
He turned back.
“Get your shoes.”
“I already have them,” Emma whispered.
My heart broke.
She had never taken them off.
She had been waiting to escape.
Dad picked up the phone.
“Thomas?”
The call was still connected.
Thomas answered immediately.
“You okay?”
“A brick.”
“Anything attached?”
Dad looked at it.
“Yes.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
I grabbed a dish towel and carefully lifted the paper without touching the brick.
There were four words printed in black marker.
GIVE BACK WHAT’S OURS.
I read them aloud.
Thomas went silent.
Dad looked at me.
“What do they want?”
Thomas finally answered.
“The drive.”
“How would anyone know it’s here?”
“I don’t know.”
Dad laughed bitterly.
“You seem to know a lot except the useful parts.”
“Robert—”
“My family is being threatened because of your mess.”
“It stopped being my mess twenty years ago.”
“It became my mess when you slept with my wife.”
“Dad!”
Emma began crying harder.
Both men went silent.
I looked at my father.
“Not now.”
His face collapsed.
“You’re right.”
Thomas spoke through the phone.
“Get out through the back.”
Dad stared at the broken window.
“They could be watching.”
“They are.”
That sentence froze me.
“How do you know?”
“Because that message wasn’t meant to scare you away.”
“What was it meant to do?”
“To see what you do next.”
Dad looked at me.
“Sarah, get Emma.”
I lifted her.
She wrapped her arms around my neck.
We moved toward the back door.
Then I stopped.
“The drive.”
Dad shook his head.
“Leave it.”
“If we leave it, they’ll take it.”
“Good.”
Thomas snapped through the phone.
“No.”
We both looked at the speaker.
Thomas said, “If someone takes it, you lose your only leverage.”
“What leverage?”
“The truth.”
I hated him already.
A stranger.
My biological father.
A man giving orders while my child trembled against my body.
“Then come get it yourself.”
Silence.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not in Charlotte.”
“Where are you?”
“Richmond.”
Dad frowned.
“Virginia?”
“Yes.”
“You called awfully fast.”
“I have alerts.”
“What kind of alerts?”
Thomas ignored him.
“Sarah, take the drive.”
I looked toward the cabinet.
A stupid little object.
Smaller than my thumb.
Potentially important enough for someone to smash my kitchen window.
I grabbed the evidence bag.
Dad opened the back door slowly.
The yard was dark.
Empty.
He checked the alley.
“Go.”
We ran.
I carried Emma.
Dad stayed behind us.
His truck was parked two houses down because Mark’s car had blocked the driveway when Dad arrived.
We reached it.
Dad unlocked the doors.
I put Emma in the back.
No car seat.
I didn’t care.
“Stay low.”
She curled onto the floor.
Dad climbed behind the wheel.
I got beside him.
The engine started.
A pair of headlights appeared at the far end of the street.
“Go.”
Dad pulled away.
The other vehicle moved too.
My chest tightened.
“Are they following us?”
“I don’t know.”
We turned left.
The vehicle turned left.
Dad accelerated.
“So much for not knowing.”
I looked back.
Dark sedan.
No front plate visible.
Thomas was still on my phone.
“Don’t go to Robert’s house.”
Dad snapped.
“I figured that out.”
“Go somewhere public.”
“The police station.”
“No.”
Dad and I both looked at the phone.
I said, “Why not?”
Thomas hesitated.
That was enough.
Dad said, “We’re going to the police.”
“Robert, listen to me.”
“No. You listen to me. I’m done taking instructions from a man who disappeared for thirty-seven years and calls the minute all hell breaks loose.”
Thomas lowered his voice.
“There are people in law enforcement connected to this.”
Dad’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Your wife did.”
My father’s face changed.
That was the first time Thomas used my mother as a weapon.
I hated him for it.
But Dad believed him.
I could see it.
“What did Margaret know?”
“Not enough.”
“Then tell us.”
“Not on the phone.”
“Convenient.”
The sedan behind us got closer.
“Dad.”
“I see it.”
He turned hard into a shopping center.
The sedan followed.
He crossed the parking lot and exited through another entrance.
The sedan stayed with us.
Emma whimpered from the back.
“Mommy.”
“I’m right here.”
“Are the bad people coming?”
My throat closed.
“No one is touching you.”
Dad looked at me.
I knew what he was thinking.
Mark had told me the same kind of thing.
I’ll protect you.
I’ll handle it.
Trust me.
Promises weren’t protection.
Plans were.
“Hospital,” I said.
Dad frowned.
“What?”
“Go to the hospital.”
“Why?”
“Cameras. Security. People everywhere.”
Thomas said, “Good.”
Dad ignored him.
We headed toward St. Matthew’s Medical Center.
The sedan followed for two more turns.
Then disappeared.
That made me more nervous.
Not less.
We reached the emergency entrance.
Dad parked under bright lights.
Security guards stood near the doors.
We got out.
Emma jumped straight into my arms.
Inside, I told the front desk that my daughter had been shoved during a domestic assault.
Everything moved quickly after that.
A nurse took us back.
A doctor examined Emma.
Minor bruising.
No serious injury.
I cried when he said it.
Emma watched me.
“Why are you crying if I’m okay?”
“Because I’m happy.”
She thought about that.
“That’s weird.”
I laughed through the tears.
For the first time all night, she smiled.
Then a nurse examined me.
Tender scalp.
Bruised wrist.
Scratches from the glass.
Photographs were taken.
Documentation.
Words Mark couldn’t rewrite.
While Emma colored in a waiting room, Dad and I stepped into the hallway.
He leaned against the wall.
“You need to call a lawyer.”
“I know.”
“And get a protective order.”
“I know.”
“I’ll pay.”
“I have money.”
“Sarah.”
“What?”
His eyes filled again.
“You don’t have to prove you can do this alone.”
That nearly destroyed me.
Because for years Mark had taught me that accepting help meant weakness.
Every favor became debt.
Every kindness became control.
Dad must have read it on my face.
“This isn’t a debt.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked away.
He put one hand on my shoulder.
“You can stay with me as long as you want.”
“Your house might not be safe.”
“Then we’ll go somewhere else.”
I nodded.
He paused.
“Sarah, I need to tell you more.”
“About Thomas?”
“About your mother.”
Before he could continue, someone approached.
A woman in a navy suit.
Forties.
Dark hair pulled back.
She showed us identification.
“Detective Laura Chen, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.”
My stomach tightened.
“Is this about Mark?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“Can we speak privately?”
Dad started to follow.
Chen held up a hand.
“Mrs. Bennett first.”
I looked at Dad.
“It’s okay.”
We entered a consultation room.
Chen closed the door.
She placed a small recorder on the table.
“Do I have your permission to record?”
“Yes.”
She sat.
“I reviewed the preliminary report.”
I waited.
“There are several issues we need to discuss.”
“Okay.”
“First, your husband has requested medical attention and claims your father assaulted him without provocation.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I expected you’d say that.”
“He saw what Mark did.”
“Your daughter also described the assault.”
I relaxed slightly.
“Second, your husband alleges that you have threatened him in the past and that you have a history of instability.”
Of course.
“He’s been building that story for years.”
“Can you prove that?”
“The cabinet.”
“I’ve seen the report.”
“He photographed every accident Emma ever had and wrote notes making it look like I caused them.”
Chen nodded.
“We’ll need to examine everything lawfully.”
“There’s a USB drive.”
Her expression sharpened.
“I know.”
“He tried to grab it from the officer.”
“I know that too.”
I leaned forward.
“Someone threw a brick through my window after the police left.”
Now she stopped writing.
“What?”
“I called emergency dispatch from the hospital parking lot. Officers should be there now.”
“What did the note say?”
“Give back what’s ours.”
Chen’s eyes narrowed.
“Who knew you had the drive?”
“Mark. The officers. Me. My father.”
“And?”
I hesitated.
“My biological father.”
She looked up.
“That wasn’t in the report.”
“I learned about him twenty minutes before the brick came through the window.”
Chen set her pen down.
“Start from the beginning.”
So I did.
Thomas Mercer.
My mother.
The three copies.
Mark’s secret.
The surveillance.
The car following us.
Chen listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she asked, “Do you have Thomas Mercer’s number?”
“Yes.”
“May I see it?”
I handed her my phone.
She wrote it down.
Then she stared at the number longer than I expected.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“Are you certain this was Thomas Mercer?”
“He said he was.”
“Your father recognized his voice.”
That wasn’t exactly true.
Dad hadn’t said that.
I realized it suddenly.
“Why?”
Chen leaned back.
“Because Thomas Mercer has been legally dead for eleven years.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
She turned the phone around.
“According to federal records, Thomas Mercer died in a boating accident off North Carolina in 2015.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“His body was never recovered.”
“Then he didn’t die.”
“Maybe.”
She studied me.
“But there’s something else.”
My heart pounded.
“What?”
“Thomas Mercer was a cooperating witness in a federal corruption investigation before he disappeared.”
My throat went dry.
“What investigation?”
She hesitated.
Then said a name I recognized immediately.
Not because of politics.
Not because of the news.
Because it was printed on the letterhead of Mark’s employer.
“Westbridge Development.”
My husband had worked there for nine years.
Chen watched my reaction.
“You know the company.”
“Mark is their regional financial director.”
The detective went very still.
That was the first moment I understood this was bigger than my marriage.
May you like
Mark hadn’t found my family’s secret by accident.
He had married into it.
