Chapter 11 - The Abandoned Mill
The Harrington textile mill had been closed for seventeen years.
Broken windows stared over the river like empty eyes.
Emily arrived shortly before midnight with Rosa and Margaret.
Police units remained nearly a mile away.
Detective Keller had reluctantly agreed to Nathan’s terms only because Emily and Rosa were wearing hidden microphones.
Margaret refused one.
“I know my son.”
She said it without pride.
“He will search me.”
The front doors of the mill stood open.
Inside, a single industrial light burned above the production floor.
Nathan waited beneath it.
Sofia sat tied to a chair beside him.
Blood stained one side of her forehead.
Rosa gasped.
“Sofia.”
Her daughter lifted her head.
“Mom.”
Nathan held a gun against the back of Sofia’s chair.
Emily stopped.
“You said she was alive.”
“She is.”
“For now.”
Nathan looked at the file box in Rosa’s hands.
“Bring it here.”
Emily stepped forward.
“Let Sofia walk to us first.”
Nathan smiled.
“You still think this is a negotiation.”
Margaret moved beside Emily.
“Nathan.”
He looked at his mother.
“I always wondered when you would choose someone else over me.”
Margaret’s voice trembled.
“I chose you too many times.”
That sentence landed harder than a slap.
Nathan’s smile vanished.
“You lied to me about the baby.”
“I saved her from you.”
“You stole my daughter.”
Sofia stared at him.
“I’m not your daughter.”
Nathan looked at her.
“Biologically, you are.”
Sofia’s face hardened.
“A father doesn’t murder a child’s mother.”
Nathan raised the gun.
Rosa took a step forward.
Emily caught her arm.
Nathan looked at the file box again.
“Open it.”
Rosa placed it on a table.
Inside were copies.
Nathan did not know that.
He searched through the documents.
His breathing slowed.
Then he found Charles’s letter.
For the first time, his hands shook.
Emily noticed.
Nathan whispered.
“He always hated me.”
Margaret answered.
“No.”
“He was afraid of you.”
Nathan looked up.
Then a new voice came from the darkness.
“Enough.”
Everyone turned.
Daniel Mercer stepped from behind an old machine.
He was seventy-two years old.
Silver-haired.
Perfectly dressed.
He held a pistol in his right hand.
Nathan stared at him.
“You’re late.”
Mercer smiled faintly.
“No, Nathan.”
“You are.”
He pointed the pistol at Nathan.
Emily’s blood ran cold.
Mercer continued.
“You’ve become a liability.”
Nathan’s expression changed.
Sofia stared between them.
Rosa whispered.
“Mercer was never helping Nathan.”
May you like
Emily understood.
He had been using him.
