Chapter 6 - Her Father's Lie
Queensboro Self Storage smelled like dust, cold concrete, and old rain.
Hannah had not opened Unit Q-417 since her father's funeral.
Now Dominic stood beside her while Vincent watched the corridor with one hand inside his coat.
The brass key turned.
The metal door rolled up.
Boxes filled the space from floor to ceiling.
Hannah stepped inside and saw her father's handwriting everywhere.
Taxes.
Christmas.
Hospital.
Mom.
She stopped at the last box.
"He told me there were no photos of my mother."
Dominic stayed behind her. "Maybe there weren't."
Hannah opened it.
There were dozens.
A young woman with Hannah's eyes smiled from faded prints. Pregnant. Laughing. Sitting beside Daniel Mercer on a park bench.
On the back of one photograph, her father had written:
Elena, 33 weeks. The girls won't stop kicking.
Hannah sat down hard on the concrete.
"He knew."
Dominic crouched beside her.
"Yes."
"He knew I had a sister every day of my life."
She pulled out another envelope.
Inside was a copy of a birth record with two female infants listed.
Baby A: Hannah Elise Mercer.
Baby B: unnamed.
Across the second line was a red stamp.
TRANSFERRED.
No hospital name.
No adoption agency.
Just a signature Hannah did not recognize.
Sebastian Vale.
Dominic took the paper from her.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
"My uncle would have been twenty-four."
"Why would he sign a hospital record for my mother?"
"I don't know."
"That's becoming your favorite answer."
He accepted the hit.
Hannah dug deeper.
At the bottom of the box sat an old digital voice recorder sealed in a plastic bag.
A yellow note was taped to it.
HANNAH - ONLY IF SOFIA FINDS YOU.
Her hands shook so badly she almost dropped it.
The battery was dead.
Vincent found a charging cable in another box.
They waited in silence until the screen flickered on.
There were six audio files.
The last was dated four days before Daniel Mercer entered hospice care.
Hannah pressed play.
Her father's weak voice filled the unit.
"Hannah, if you're hearing this, then Sofia found you... or someone found you because of her. I am sorry. I thought keeping you apart would keep you alive. I was wrong."
Hannah covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
"Your sister was taken from the hospital the night your mother died. I spent twenty-four years looking for her. When I finally found her, she told me something I wish I had never heard."
A long pause.
Then her father whispered:
May you like
"Sofia believed Dominic Vale's family killed your mother."
Behind them, the storage door slammed shut.
