Chapter 3 - A FATHER SHE DIDN’T KNOW
Daniel put one finger to his lips.
Sophie nodded.
Elena could feel the child’s heart beating through her pajamas.
The sound came again from downstairs.
Metal against metal.
Then a soft click.
Daniel took his phone from his pocket and typed something quickly. He showed Elena the screen.
LOCK BEDROOM. CALL 911 IF I SAY RED.
Elena grabbed his wrist before he could move.
“No.”
His eyes met hers.
“You’re not going down there.”
“If he comes up here, there’s nowhere else to go.”
“You don’t know who it is.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
Sophie whispered, “Is it Grandpa?”
Elena’s throat tightened.
“I don’t know, baby.”
Daniel gently removed Elena’s hand from his wrist.
“I’ll stay on the stairs.”
He moved without waiting for permission.
Elena hated how familiar that looked—the same quiet confidence he had possessed before the fire, except stripped now of youth. He opened the apartment door and disappeared into the dark stairwell.
She took Sophie into the bedroom and locked the door.
Her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped her phone.
Below them, floorboards creaked.
A man’s voice said, “Mercer?”
Elena froze.
Daniel answered, “Who are you?”
“Easy. It’s me.”
A pause.
Then Daniel exhaled.
“Marcus, you idiot.”
Elena closed her eyes.
A minute later Daniel knocked three times on the bedroom door.
“It’s okay.”
Elena opened it.
The man beside Daniel was broad-shouldered, Black, perhaps forty, wearing jeans and a gray rain jacket. He held both hands out where she could see them.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was trying not to wake anybody.”
“You almost got yourself killed,” Daniel muttered.
The man looked at him. “By what? Your personality?”
Daniel did not smile.
Marcus did.
Then his expression softened when he saw Sophie.
“You must be Sophie.”
Sophie hid behind Elena.
Marcus nodded as if this were reasonable. “Good instincts.”
Elena crossed her arms. “Who are you?”
“Marcus Reed. I work with Daniel.”
“At what?”
Marcus looked at Daniel.
Daniel said, “Private investigations. Corporate security. Missing persons sometimes.”
Elena stared at him. “You became a private investigator?”
“Not exactly by choice.”
Marcus snorted. “That’s what he tells people because ‘professionally paranoid’ doesn’t fit well on a business card.”
Daniel ignored him.
Marcus placed a small black device on the table.
“I checked your rental car. Found this under the rear bumper.”
Elena leaned closer.
“What is it?”
“A tracker.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“So that’s how they knew about the hotel.”
“Maybe. There’s more.” Marcus pulled out his phone. “The rental company says the car was clean when you picked it up. Their lot cameras show someone walking near it yesterday afternoon.”
“Can you see his face?”
“Hat. Sunglasses. Knew where the camera was.”
Elena felt cold.
“Who is ‘they’?”
Marcus looked at her carefully.
“That is the expensive question.”
Sophie tugged Elena’s shirt.
“I’m tired.”
Elena bent and picked her up.
Daniel stepped aside immediately, creating space.
“I’ll keep watch,” he said.
Elena almost objected.
Then she saw the way he was looking at Sophie.
There was no demand in it.
Only hunger.
Not the dangerous kind.
The kind of hunger a person carries when he has missed six years he can never buy back.
“You can say good night,” Elena said.
Daniel looked at her as if she had opened a door.
He approached the bedroom slowly.
Sophie was tucked under the blanket with her rabbit pressed under one arm. Daniel stood near the foot of the bed.
“Good night,” he said.
Sophie studied him.
“Are you really my dad?”
“Yes.”
“Mommy said yes too.”
“I’m glad we agree.”
“Grandpa said my dad was bad.”
Daniel’s face changed, but his voice stayed steady.
“Your grandpa and I disagree about some things.”
“Did you die?”
“Almost.”
“Did it hurt?”
Elena started to interrupt, but Daniel answered gently.
“Yes.”
Sophie touched the side of her own neck.
“Mine hurts sometimes.”
Daniel crouched.
“I’m sorry.”
“Grandma says if I sat straight it wouldn’t.”
Elena shut her eyes.
Daniel did not look at her.
He looked only at Sophie.
“Can I tell you something?”
Sophie nodded.
“People who aren’t inside your body don’t get to decide when something hurts.”
Sophie was quiet.
Then she whispered, “Okay.”
“And you don’t have to make yourself hurt just to look the way someone else wants.”
Her eyes moved toward Elena, checking.
Elena nodded.
Sophie relaxed into the pillow.
Daniel stood.
At the door, she called him back.
“Dad?”
He stopped.
The word hit him visibly.
Sophie did not seem to notice.
“What cereal do you like?”
Daniel swallowed.
“The boring kind.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is.”
She yawned. “You can have mine tomorrow.”
Daniel walked into the hallway and leaned one hand against the wall.
Elena closed the bedroom door behind them.
He looked away.
She let him.
After a moment he said, “Thank you.”
“She asked for you.”
“You could have stopped it.”
“I’m angry, Daniel. I’m not cruel.”
He nodded once.
Marcus had made coffee in the kitchen. It was nearly one in the morning, but no one suggested sleep.
Elena placed the forged letter on the table.
“My mother wrote this.”
Marcus scanned it. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve seen her handwriting my entire life.”
Daniel sat opposite her.
“Why would she admit Dad answered your call but not admit this?”
“Fear,” Marcus said.
Elena looked at him.
He lifted one shoulder. “Fear makes people tell the truth in pieces. They give you enough to reduce the pressure, not enough to destroy the life they’re still trying to preserve.”
Daniel glanced at him. “You charging by the hour for therapy now?”
“No. You couldn’t afford me.”
Elena turned the letter over.
On the back was a faint blue stamp she had not noticed before.
A post office date.
Six years earlier.
Daniel said, “There were nine letters total.”
“I only saw five.”
“Four never came back.”
“Maybe my father destroyed them.”
“Maybe.”
“What did you write?”
“Everything. Where I was. What happened. How to reach me.”
“Then if he has those letters, he’s known where you were.”
Daniel shook his head. “Not exactly. I moved constantly. I used mail drops.”
“Why did you stop writing?”
His eyes held hers.
“Because after the forged reply, I received a photograph.”
Elena’s skin prickled.
“Of what?”
“You.”
He unlocked his phone, found an image, and set it in front of her.
Elena was standing outside a doctor’s office, pregnant, one hand under her belly. The picture had been taken from across the street.
On the back, Daniel said, had been written one sentence.
Next time the camera can be a rifle.
Elena’s stomach rolled.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“You should have gone to police.”
“I tried. The officer I spoke to called Victor before I finished giving my statement.”
“You’re serious?”
Daniel nodded.
Marcus leaned against the counter. “That was when I met him. I was working insurance fraud. The warehouse claim looked wrong, and this ghost kept sending me documents.”
“You helped him?” Elena asked.
“Eventually. At first I assumed he was the fraud.”
Daniel said, “He has trust issues.”
Marcus stared at him. “That sentence from you is a felony.”
Despite herself, Elena smiled.
It faded quickly.
“So you built a new life.”
Daniel’s eyes dropped.
“I built something.”
“Did you marry?”
“No.”
“Anyone?”
“No.”
She hated the relief that moved through her.
“That’s not my business.”
“No.”
“Stop agreeing with me.”
“Okay.”
She glared.
Marcus quietly carried his coffee into the other room.
Elena folded her arms.
“You could have found me once you had money, once you had Marcus, once you weren’t alone.”
“I did find you.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Her mouth opened.
Daniel continued before she could speak.
“I came to town. I watched Sophie leave preschool with you.”
Elena stood.
“You watched us?”
“I needed to know you were safe.”
“You were twenty feet from your daughter and you walked away?”
His face tightened.
“Victor was in the parking lot.”
“So?”
“He had a man with him. Owen Pike.”
The name meant nothing to Elena.
Marcus reappeared from the living room.
“It means something to me,” he said.
“Who is he?”
“Former corrections officer. Fired after an inmate ended up in intensive care. Since then he’s done security work for people who prefer their problems quiet.”
Elena felt suddenly sick.
“He works for my father?”
“We’ve seen him around Victor at least four times,” Daniel said.
“And the man who put the tracker on your car?”
“Could be Pike.”
A vibration sounded on the table.
Elena’s phone.
The screen showed an unknown number.
All three adults looked at it.
She answered on speaker.
“Hello?”
For a moment, nothing.
Then her father’s voice.
“Elena.”
She gripped the edge of the table.
“How did you get this number?”
“I’ve had your number since you were sixteen.”
Of course he had.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to bring Sophie home.”
“She is home. She’s with me.”
“Not while you’re with him.”
Daniel’s expression did not change.
Victor continued, “You have no idea who Daniel Mercer is now.”
“And you do?”
“I know he lied to you. I know he abandoned you. I know he has spent six years living under false names.”
“Because you threatened him.”
A pause.
“So Margaret has decided to become brave.”
Elena hated the contempt in his voice.
“You hit me.”
“You were hysterical.”
“You hit me in front of my daughter.”
“I disciplined my child in my home.”
Elena laughed without humor. “I’m twenty-nine.”
“You’re still acting like a teenager.”
Daniel started to speak, but Elena raised one hand.
This conversation was hers.
Victor’s tone softened.
“Come back in the morning. We’ll talk. I’ll apologize. Sophie needs stability.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No.”
The silence on the line changed.
“All right,” Victor said. “Then we’ll let other people decide what Sophie needs.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out.”
He hung up.
Marcus muttered a curse.
Daniel was already reaching for his laptop.
“What?” Elena asked.
“Victor doesn’t bluff unless he has something prepared.”
Ten minutes later, Elena’s email chimed.
The message came from a law firm downtown.
Attached was a petition filed less than an hour earlier.
EMERGENCY PETITION FOR TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP OF MINOR CHILD.
Petitioner: Victor Ward.
Elena read the first paragraph twice.
Then the second.
Her father alleged that she was financially unstable, emotionally distressed, and had removed Sophie from a safe residence in the company of Daniel Mercer, a man “believed deceased for six years and currently using multiple identities.”
There were photographs attached.
Elena at a pharmacy, crying after a fight with her father.
Elena asleep in her car outside Sophie’s therapy clinic after working a double shift.
Elena carrying wine into the house for a family Christmas dinner.
Ordinary moments arranged to look like a collapse.
At the bottom was a declaration from a witness.
Margaret Ward.
Elena stopped breathing.
“No,” she whispered.
Daniel came around the table.
She scrolled to the signature.
Her mother’s name sat there in black ink.
Signed two days ago.
Two days before Margaret had claimed she was afraid.
Two days before Victor slapped Elena.
Two days before Daniel returned.
Elena stared at the screen until the letters blurred.
May you like
Her mother had not simply kept a secret.
She had helped Victor prepare to take Sophie.
