Chapter 16 - A Knock Nine Years Late
Elena couldn't move. An agent checked the camera, confirmed the man's identity as far as possible, and led him into a secure interview room before allowing the family to meet him.
He was thinner than the man she remembered, his hair touched with gray. A deep scar crossed his temple. He held his hands folded in his lap like a boy waiting outside the principal's office.
“Elena?” he asked when she entered.
She crossed the room, then stopped a few feet away. Nine years of grief stood between them.
“Tell me something only Marcus would know,” she whispered.
He frowned with concentration. “We were married in the rain because the church roof leaked. You said that meant God was washing the bad luck away.”
Elena made a broken sound. “And what did you say?”
“That if luck ran out, we'd make our own.”
She stepped forward and held him. He began to cry against her shoulder, frightened by how much love he'd forgotten and how much pain he could still recognize.
Medical professionals advised them to keep the reunion gentle. Marcus suffered from fragmented memory and long-term trauma. Elena agreed. She introduced Sophie in a quiet room with a therapist present.
The girl stared at the stranger, trying to find her father in his face. Marcus didn't ask her to hug him. He simply held out Mr. Hops, carefully repaired at the ear.
“Your mom told me he's been looking after you,” he said.
Sophie took the rabbit. “Did you want to come home?”
“Every day I understood what home was.”
She sat beside him. A minute later she put her small hand over his.
Daniel watched through a window until Marcus noticed him. The two men looked at each other, older and less certain than they'd once been. Daniel entered, throat tight.
“I'm sorry I couldn't bring you back,” he said.
Marcus shook his head. “You came back for me now.”
The reunion lasted twenty minutes before a doctor called a pause. Outside, an investigator approached Daniel with urgent news.
Marcus had recognized the face of the man who kept him hidden.
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It wasn't Victor Hale.
It was General Thomas Mercer.
