Chapter 8 - Caroline and Ellie
I carried the photograph downstairs.
Harrison saw it before I reached him.
Whatever argument he had prepared disappeared.
Gavin came behind us under guard.
Eleanor was still missing.
I held the photograph in front of Harrison.
“Explain this.”
He looked away.
“Look at me.”
Hundreds of guests were still trapped inside the ballroom.
Nobody complained now.
The story unfolding in front of them had become too dangerous to interrupt.
Harrison finally met my eyes.
“Your mother and Eleanor were friends.”
“After the crash?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the crash wasn’t an accident.”
My throat tightened.
“I know that.”
“No.”
Harrison shook his head.
“You think we caused it.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
The certainty in his voice caught me off guard.
I looked toward Anna.
She seemed equally surprised.
“Then who did?”
Harrison glanced toward my phone.
“Is your father still listening?”
“No.”
“Convenient.”
I stepped closer.
“Answer me.”
He stared at the photograph.
“Caroline discovered money was being stolen from Harbor House.”
“By you.”
“By several people.”
“Names.”
“People who became judges.”
His eyes moved across the ballroom.
“Council members.”
Everett Shaw looked sick.
“Developers.”
More people shifted.
“Police officials.”
The room became silent.
“And one federal contractor.”
I waited.
Harrison looked at me.
“Richard Mercer.”
My heart pounded.
“You’re lying.”
“Your father helped build the accounting system used to move the money.”
“No.”
“He didn’t know what it was at first.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Harrison’s tone became unexpectedly serious.
“It isn’t.”
He leaned closer.
“But when Caroline discovered the scheme, your father had a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Expose everyone and risk losing you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why me?”
“Because someone took you.”
Fragments of memory flashed through my mind.
A motel room.
Curtains closed in daylight.
A woman giving me orange juice.
My father crying when he hugged me.
For years, I believed those memories belonged to a childhood illness.
I had never questioned them.
Harrison continued.
“You were missing for thirty-one hours.”
“That never happened.”
“It did.”
“Who took me?”
He glanced toward the crowd.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I knew about the ransom.”
“The two million dollars.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you pay Dad?”
“Because the kidnappers demanded money that could not be traced directly to him.”
The room tilted.
I steadied myself against a table.
“Then what happened to Mom?”
“She tried to expose the network anyway.”
“After I came home?”
“Yes.”
“And the crash?”
“Someone forced her car off the road.”
My eyes burned.
“You found her.”
“Eleanor did.”
“Where?”
“Alive.”
The word hurt more the second time.
“For six months?”
Harrison shook his head.
“Longer.”
“How much longer?”
He opened his mouth.
Before he could answer, the steel barrier near the east entrance began rising.
Marcus spun toward the security panel.
“I didn’t authorize that.”
A gap appeared beneath the door.
Outside, black vehicles surrounded the estate.
Red and blue lights flashed across the windows.
Then a voice boomed through an external speaker.
“This is Chief Daniel Mercer.”
My blood froze.
Daniel Mercer was my uncle.
May you like
My father’s younger brother.
And he had been the police officer who signed my mother’s death report.
