Chapter 11 - My Mother's Last Warning
I opened the envelope with shaking hands.
Inside was a three-page letter dated four months before my mother died.
Claire,
If you are reading this, then someone finally told you what happened to the Mercer Building.
My throat closed.
The letter was not about money.
It was about fear.
My mother wrote that Richard Bennett had visited her while she was pregnant with me. He told her my grandfather's debts could become criminal charges if she kept fighting the property transfer. He told her a baby needed a mother more than a building needed an owner.
She signed.
Years later, she found evidence that the notarized deed had been filed two days before she signed the settlement.
Someone had forged my grandfather's signature.
She planned to reopen the case.
Then she got sick.
At the bottom, she wrote one last line:
If Richard Bennett ever learns you know this, do not trust anyone he sends to help you.
Anyone.
I looked up.
Evelyn was watching me.
Daniel had been sent to help me.
Or to watch me.
"Why did Richard keep this?"
"Insurance," she said. "He keeps proof of everyone's fear."
I folded the pages carefully.
"And you? What does he have on you?"
Evelyn looked away.
That was answer enough.
"Tell me."
She gripped the steering wheel.
"When I disappeared, I wasn't alone."
My chest tightened.
"What do you mean?"
She reached into the glove box and pulled out a photograph.
A boy stood beside her on a beach. Brown hair. Green eyes. Maybe five years old.
He looked like Daniel.
"His name is Noah," Evelyn said.
I stared at the photo.
"Daniel has a son?"
"Daniel doesn't know."
My stomach turned.
"Why are you telling me?"
Before she could answer, headlights flooded the car from behind.
A black SUV had stopped across the gas station exit.
May you like
The same kind that had fled our house.
Evelyn whispered, "Because Richard knows Noah exists now."
