Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE
For one terrible second, I thought my mother was dead.
Then she moved.
"Hannah!" Grant shouted from somewhere behind me. "Get down!"
A second gunshot shattered the warehouse window.
I dropped beside my mother and pulled her against the concrete wall.
Her shoulder was bleeding.
I pressed both hands against the wound, fighting to keep my voice steady.
"Mom, look at me. Please."
Her eyes opened.
"I'm here, sweetheart."
The relief nearly broke me.
Across the warehouse, Grant's security team rushed through a side entrance.
The armed man who had appeared behind me lay wounded near a stack of shipping pallets. Another gunman surrendered after Marcus tackled him.
But Paul Kessler had disappeared.
So had the man carrying our envelope.
Grant hurried toward us.
"Is she hit?"
"Her shoulder," I answered. "She's bleeding."
He removed his jacket and folded it beneath her head.
"Marcus! Ambulance. Now."
My mother grabbed his wrist.
"Don't take me to County General."
Grant looked surprised.
"Why?"
"That's where they sent Daniel after he fell. A doctor told me he still had a pulse when he arrived."
She swallowed painfully.
"By morning, the hospital records said he was dead at the construction site."
I looked at her.
"Mom, you never told me that."
"I tried. The detective said I was grieving and confused."
Kessler.
Every time we uncovered another piece of my father's death, that man's name appeared.
Grant looked toward Marcus.
"Private medical team. And nobody gets her location without my authorization."
Within fifteen minutes, my mother was being treated in a secure medical facility owned by a physician Grant trusted.
Her shoulder wound was painful but not life-threatening.
The bullet had passed through the muscle without damaging a major blood vessel.
I sat beside her bed while the doctor stitched the injury.
Grant remained outside, speaking quietly into his phone.
I could hear enough to understand that someone had escaped through an underground loading passage.
I didn't care about the escape.
Not yet.
All I cared about was the woman holding my hand.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
My mother frowned.
"For what?"
"For getting you involved."
She squeezed my fingers.
"Hannah, these people came after our family long before you found that suitcase."
She watched the doctor finish the dressing.
Then she asked him to give us a moment.
When we were alone, she looked toward the door.
"There's something I should have told you years ago."
I waited.
"Your father didn't believe he was investigating ordinary theft."
"What do you mean?"
"He believed somebody was using city construction contracts to pay people for crimes."
A cold feeling settled in my stomach.
"He said the invoices weren't just payments to fake companies. Some were rewards."
"For what?"
"For making witnesses disappear."
I remembered the dozens of invoices on Thomas's flash drive.
The false maintenance contracts.
The nonexistent workers.
Forty-two million dollars.
"Did Dad have proof?"
My mother nodded.
"He kept a notebook. Not his official inspection notebook. A smaller one."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know. After he died, somebody searched our apartment. They took his work files, his computer, even an old briefcase."
"Did you report it?"
"To Detective Kessler."
We exchanged a look.
Of course she had.
"Afterward, I realized the small notebook was missing too. I thought whoever searched the apartment had found it."
"Then it's gone?"
"Maybe not."
She reached toward her neck.
A thin silver chain disappeared beneath her hospital gown.
She pulled it free.
A small brass key hung from the chain.
Stamped into the metal were two numbers.
41\.
"Your father gave me this the night before he died."
I stared at it.
"He said that if anything happened, I should go to the place where we first danced together."
"Where was that?"
"St. Bridget's parish hall. They had a dance there when we were young."
I smiled despite the tears in my eyes.
My father had loved telling that story.
He said my mother had stepped on both his feet and spilled lemonade down his shirt.
"He told me to look beneath the old stage," she continued.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because when I tried, someone was waiting outside the church."
"Who?"
She closed her eyes.
"Paul Kessler."
My mouth went dry.
"He told me Daniel's case had been closed and I should stop asking questions. Then he mentioned your school."
My mother began to cry.
"He knew which school you attended, Hannah. He even knew which bus you took."
I held her tightly.
For twelve years, she had carried that fear alone.
And I had blamed her for refusing to talk about Dad's death.
"I'm sorry I didn't understand," I whispered.
She touched my cheek.
"You were fifteen. I wanted you to have a childhood after losing your father."
There was a knock.
Grant entered carrying two cups of coffee.
He stopped when he saw us crying.
"I can come back."
"No," my mother said. "Come in."
He placed the cups on the bedside table.
"Mrs. Reed, I'm Grant Mercer."
She studied him.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then my mother said, "You look like your father."
Grant's expression tightened.
"People tell me that."
"Thomas came to see me three weeks before he died."
I turned toward her.
"What?"
"He said he'd discovered what happened to Daniel."
Grant slowly pulled a chair closer.
"What did he tell you?"
"That he was ashamed. That he'd trusted someone he shouldn't have trusted."
"Did he name Caleb?"
"No. But he gave me money."
My heart sank.
"How much?"
"Three thousand dollars."
Grant looked sharply at me.
The separate bundle.
The green rubber band.
The label bearing my father's name.
"He said it was a payment he should have made years earlier," my mother continued.
"I told him I didn't want his guilt money."
"What did he do?" Grant asked.
"He took it back. Then he said he would leave us something more valuable than money."
"The truth," I whispered.
My mother nodded.
"He promised to make things right."
Grant lowered his head.
For the first time, I understood something about Thomas Mercer.
He hadn't simply hidden evidence to protect his son.
He had been trying to correct a terrible mistake before it was too late.
Grant looked at me.
"The three-thousand-dollar bundle wasn't part of Caleb's original payment. My father added it."
"With my father's name and the password."
"He wanted us to make the connection."
I suddenly remembered another question.
"Mom, did Thomas ever mention why Dad went to Caleb instead of going directly to the police?"
Her face changed.
"Because Thomas told him to."
"That's what the letter said."
"Daniel was angry about it. He said Caleb Rourke controlled the contracts, and confronting him was like asking a thief to investigate his own robbery."
Grant rubbed his forehead.
"My father didn't know what Caleb was doing back then."
"Maybe," my mother said.
Her voice sharpened.
"But somebody in your family did."
Grant looked up.
"What are you saying?"
"I remember Daniel mentioning a woman. He said she had access to private company records and promised to help him."
"Who?"
"He never gave me her name."
She reached for my hand.
"But he said something strange about her."
"What?"
"He said she was the one person in the Mercer family who wasn't afraid of Caleb."
I glanced at Grant.
His expression had become unreadable.
"There's only one person that could describe," he said.
Before he could explain, his phone rang.
Marcus.
Grant answered.
"Sir, we recovered an abandoned vehicle near the warehouse. Kessler apparently escaped in another car, but we found documents in the one he left."
"What documents?"
"Photographs. Someone was watching Thomas Mercer in Asheville before the accident."
Grant stood.
"Send them."
A moment later, three images appeared on his screen.
The first showed Thomas outside his mountain lodge.
The second showed Caleb standing beside Thomas's car.
The third showed a woman approaching the lodge carrying a leather briefcase.
Grant stared at it.
The photograph had been taken four days before Thomas died.
The woman wore a cream-colored coat and dark sunglasses.
Her face was unmistakable.
"Grant?" I whispered.
He didn't answer.
I touched his arm.
"Who is she?"
He finally looked at me.
"My sister."
I stared at the screen.
"Your sister was in Asheville?"
"Vivian told me she was in London that entire month."
"Could she have been helping your father?"
Grant's expression darkened.
"Vivian and Caleb hated each other. She left our family business six years ago because she accused him of stealing from us."
"Then maybe she knew something."
"Maybe."
Another message arrived from Marcus.
THE WOMAN SIGNED THE REPAIR AUTHORIZATION FOR THOMAS MERCER'S CAR.
I read the words over Grant's shoulder.
His father had died when the brakes failed.
And now the evidence suggested his own daughter had authorized work on the vehicle shortly before the crash.
Grant slowly lowered the phone.
"My sister was the last person in our family to see him alive."
May you like
Then he looked at me with an expression I would never forget.
"And she might be the person who made sure he never came home."
