Chapter 10 - A Man Who Should Be Dead
The man inside the storage room stepped into the officers' flashlight beams with both hands raised.
He was older, thinner, and had a beard streaked gray, but Claire recognized him instantly from the live feed.
"Daniel," she breathed.
He looked straight into the camera mounted on Reed's vest. "Is she safe?"
Reed ordered him to kneel. Daniel obeyed, wincing as his hands were cuffed. A pistol lay unloaded on a table beside several file boxes.
"I was trying to keep them from burning it," Daniel said. "Martin's people were here last night."
"You could have called us," Reed replied.
"Last time I called the police, Claire's mother died."
They brought Daniel to a secure interview room after paramedics examined him. Claire insisted on seeing him. Reed allowed it with an officer present; I stayed beside her.
Daniel stood when we entered. Tears gathered in his eyes. "Little bird."
Claire didn't hug him. "You let me bury you."
"I was supposed to disappear. That was how I kept you alive."
"You threatened my daughter."
He shook his head. "I never went near her. I called you from the old number, but I didn't have your new address until yesterday. Someone's using my name."
"And the voice on the phone?" she asked.
"A recording. I used to call you little bird. Lots of people heard it."
His denial sounded rehearsed, but then he said something that changed the room. "The man who raised me kept a ledger. One page listed a child named Rose Mercer. She was taken from her mother years before the clinic records burned."
Reed opened a file folder. "What does that have to do with Claire's child?"
Daniel glanced at my wife. "Rose is thirty now. She learned what happened. She's trying to find the people who took her life."
Claire shook her head. "I don't know any Rose Mercer."
"You do," Daniel said. "You just know her by a different name."
May you like
He turned toward me, and something in his eyes made my stomach tighten.
"Evan," he said, "your sister isn't dead."
