Chapter 6 - THE MURDER CHARGE WITH HIS NAME ON IT
"Put your hands where I can see them, Mercer!"
Detective Paul Kessler stepped through the shattered garage doorway with four armed officers behind him.
Eight hours earlier, I had watched him kidnap my mother.
Now he was pointing his gun at Grant and pretending to uphold the law.
Grant knelt on the concrete, holding his bleeding sister.
"She needs an ambulance," he said.
Kessler glanced at Vivian.
"That isn't my problem."
"It will be if she dies."
"Hands up, Mercer. Now."
I stood between them.
"He's innocent!"
Kessler smiled.
"Hannah Reed. I should have known you'd be here."
"You kidnapped my mother!"
The officers exchanged uneasy looks.
Kessler's smile disappeared.
"She's upset. Her mother's been involved in a domestic disturbance, and this young woman has been making wild accusations."
"He's lying!" I shouted.
Grant caught my wrist.
"Hannah. Stop."
I turned toward him.
His expression was calm, but his eyes warned me not to push further.
Marcus was already on the phone requesting emergency medical assistance.
Frank Dyer had taken shelter behind a workbench.
One of Kessler's officers lowered his weapon.
"Detective, the woman is bleeding pretty badly."
Kessler looked annoyed.
"Call medical."
Then he turned back to Grant.
"Grant Mercer, you're being detained on a warrant connected to the death of Thomas Mercer and an interstate financial conspiracy."
Grant's jaw tightened.
"Show me the warrant."
Kessler handed him the paperwork.
Even from where I stood, I could see the signatures and official seals.
Someone had built a case against Grant.
A case that relied on the very documents Thomas had warned about.
"Who issued this?" Grant asked.
"An investigator in North Carolina supplied the homicide evidence. Federal authorities are involved in the financial charges."
Grant studied the document.
"You're using a forged authorization."
"Tell that to a judge."
Grant looked at Vivian.
Her breathing was shallow.
"Get my sister to a hospital."
"Are you surrendering?" Kessler demanded.
Grant slowly stood.
"Yes."
I grabbed his arm.
"Grant, don't."
He turned toward me.
For a second, the fearsome mafia boss disappeared, and I saw a man who had lost his father and might now lose his sister.
"Listen carefully," he whispered.
"Don't let them take you."
"Hannah."
His voice was firm.
"Vivian needs help. Your mother needs protection. And Caleb wants me to run so he can make me look guilty."
I shook my head.
"But Kessler—"
"I know exactly what Kessler is."
He lowered his voice.
"Keep the evidence. Trust your numbers."
Then he was handcuffed.
I watched them lead him through the broken garage doorway.
Kessler paused beside me.
"Your father was stubborn too."
I stared at him.
"Did you tell him to stop investigating?"
Kessler leaned closer.
"I told him to think about his family."
His smile returned.
"He didn't listen."
Before I could answer, he followed the officers outside.
Grant was placed in an unmarked police vehicle.
For one terrible moment, he turned his head toward the garage.
Our eyes met through the rain-streaked window.
Then the vehicle drove away.
I stood motionless until the sound of its engine disappeared.
"Hannah!"
Marcus's voice brought me back.
Vivian was losing blood.
We had no time for grief or fear.
The ambulance arrived minutes later.
I rode beside Vivian while Marcus followed in another vehicle.
At the hospital, surgeons rushed her into an operating room.
The bullet had entered near her shoulder and caused significant bleeding, but the doctors believed they could save her.
I sat in the waiting room with my father's notebook open on my lap.
Grant was in custody.
Vivian was fighting for her life.
My mother was recovering from a gunshot wound.
And Caleb Rourke was still free.
For the first time, I understood the scale of what we were facing.
This wasn't one man protecting a financial secret.
It was a system built to punish anyone who threatened it.
At four in the morning, a woman in a navy suit approached me.
"Hannah Reed?"
I looked up.
"Who's asking?"
She showed me a federal identification card.
"Special Agent Dana Whitcomb. FBI."
I immediately closed the notebook.
"Are you working with Detective Kessler?"
Her expression changed.
"No. I've spent fourteen months trying to prove he's involved in laundering public money."
I stared at her.
"Then why haven't you arrested him?"
"Because suspicion isn't evidence. His reports are clean, his supervisors have defended him, and several witnesses changed their statements before we could interview them."
"One of those witnesses was my father."
Dana sat opposite me.
"Daniel Reed was the first person to document the fraudulent contractor network."
My throat tightened.
"You knew about him?"
"I found his name in an old financial investigation. His death was classified as an accident, but there were discrepancies."
"There were more than discrepancies."
I told her what had happened.
The suitcase.
The letters.
The flash drive.
The kidnapping.
Kessler's appearance at the warehouse.
And Grant's arrest.
Dana listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she looked deeply troubled.
"That arrest shouldn't have happened tonight."
"What do you mean?"
"An arrest warrant involving an out-of-state homicide would normally be coordinated with the relevant authorities. I checked. Our task force wasn't notified."
"Then Kessler lied?"
"He may have used a separate investigation to obtain the paperwork. I need to verify the issuing court and the transport orders."
I leaned forward.
"Can you get Grant released?"
"If the evidence is fabricated, I can challenge it. But I need something stronger than his denial."
I opened my father's notebook.
"Then help me prove it."
Dana examined the entries.
She stopped at the pages identifying Lakefront Municipal Services.
"This is extraordinary."
"Why?"
"Because we've been trying to identify the original source of those payments for more than a year."
I showed her the photographs of Thomas's records.
The fraudulent accounts.
The $243,000.
The forged authorization.
And the file showing that Caleb owned the shell company.
Dana took careful notes.
"Do you have the original drive?"
"Secured somewhere Caleb can't reach."
"Good. Keep it that way until we can arrange a verified evidence transfer."
She pointed toward the authorization bearing Grant's name.
"We need to establish where this document originated."
"I can help with that."
A woman's voice came from behind us.
I turned.
A petite woman with reddish-brown hair stood near the waiting-room entrance, clutching a laptop bag.
"I'm Mara Ellis," she said. "Senior accounting manager at Mercer Civic Systems."
Dana rose.
"How did you find us?"
"Marcus Hale called me."
Mara looked at me.
"Thomas Mercer asked me to watch the company's internal authorization logs before he died. I didn't know why until the forged contract approvals started appearing."
My pulse quickened.
"Can you prove Grant didn't sign the repair cancellation?"
"I think so."
She opened her laptop.
The system showed a record of the cancellation request made shortly before Thomas's accident.
Under authorization, it displayed Grant Mercer's executive credentials.
But Mara scrolled farther down.
"Here's the terminal history."
A location appeared.
MERCER CIVIC SYSTEMS—EXECUTIVE FLOOR.
Then a timestamp.
"Grant was attending a conference in Denver that afternoon," Mara explained. "I verified his travel records."
Dana leaned closer.
"So somebody used his credentials while he was out of town."
"Yes."
"Can you identify who?"
Mara hesitated.
"Executive access badges are logged separately. One security credential entered Grant's office three minutes before the authorization."
She enlarged the record.
ACCESS ID: MH-06.
I stared at it.
"MH?"
Mara nodded.
"Marcus Hale."
My stomach dropped.
Marcus.
The man who had protected my mother.
The man who had helped rescue us at the warehouse.
The man Grant trusted to guard his life.
"That doesn't prove Marcus sent the authorization," Dana said carefully. "But it means we need to ask him about his access."
I looked toward the hospital corridor.
Marcus had been standing outside Vivian's operating room just minutes earlier.
Now he was gone.
My phone vibrated.
A message from him appeared.
GRANT'S TRANSPORT VEHICLE HAS LEFT THE APPROVED ROUTE.
Another message followed.
GPS SIGNAL LOST NEAR THE OLD MUNICIPAL PUMP STATION.
I looked up at Dana.
"Where's Grant?"
She immediately reached for her phone.
"Official records say he's being transported to a federal holding facility."
"He's not."
Mara turned her laptop toward us.
An emergency alert had appeared in the company's private security system.
Someone had accessed Grant's personal file and changed his status.
SUBJECT: GRANT MERCER
TRANSFER RECORD: CLOSED
DISPOSITION: RELEASED FROM CUSTODY
Dana stood abruptly.
"That's impossible. There hasn't been a hearing."
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered with shaking hands.
At first, I heard only static.
Then Grant's voice.
"Hannah?"
"Grant! Where are you?"
A harsh sound interrupted him.
Something metallic struck the floor.
Then I heard Kessler speaking in the background.
"Tell Rourke we have him."
Grant's voice returned, quieter.
"Hannah, whatever happens, don't let them—"
A gunshot exploded through the phone.
The connection ended.
I stared at the screen.
For one unbearable second, I couldn't breathe.
Then another message appeared.
It contained a photograph of Grant sitting handcuffed in a concrete room.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
May you like
Beneath the photograph were four words.
YOUR TURN, HANNAH REED.
