“You were in Daniel’s car?”
Adrian’s eyes opened.
“Yes.”
Rebecca’s voice cracked.
“My brother died alone.”
“No.”
“The police said he was alone.”
“They lied.”
Rebecca lunged across the seat.
“You knew?”
Adrian caught her wrists before she could hit him.
“Rebecca, listen to me.”
“You let me spend two years believing he drove off that bridge alone!”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because your brother asked me not to.”
Rebecca went completely still.
“What?”
The police siren screamed behind us.
Colleen took another sharp turn, throwing all of us sideways.
“Whatever you’re going to explain,” she shouted, “do it quickly.”
Adrian released Rebecca.
“Daniel contacted me three days before he died.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“You didn’t even know him.”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I’d been working with him secretly for months.”
Her face drained of color.
“Working on what?”
“Your father’s records.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“My brother hired you?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Adrian looked at me.
“Meredith’s father.”
Nobody spoke.
I felt as if the air had disappeared from the SUV.
“My father?”
“Thomas contacted me almost a year before our wedding.”
“Why?”
“Because he’d learned who I was dating.”
I stared at him.
“You mean me.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of telling me my father was alive, you started working for him?”
“I didn’t know if he really was your father.”
“You could’ve asked me.”
“And said what? A stranger claiming to be your dead father contacted me?”
“YES!”
My voice cracked.
“You should have told me everything!”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
I pointed at him.
“You don’t get to say that after letting me stand over your grave.”
Adrian looked away.
Rebecca wiped tears from her face.
“What did my brother know?”
Adrian took a breath.
“Enough to get himself killed.”
The siren behind us suddenly stopped.
I looked through the rear window.
The police cruiser had disappeared.
“Where did they go?”
Colleen checked the mirror.
“I don’t know.”
That somehow frightened me more.
Adrian continued.
“Daniel discovered Lawson Freight wasn’t just laundering money.”
“What else?”
Rebecca asked.
“Your father had been moving people.”
Rebecca frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“People who needed to disappear. Witnesses. Informants. People running from investigations. New identities, forged documents, transportation across state lines.”
My stomach twisted.
“And my father?”
“Thomas discovered it years ago.”
“So he disappeared?”
“Not willingly.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Your father was supposed to testify.”
“Against Lawson?”
“Yes.”
“The night before he was supposed to meet federal investigators, he vanished.”
“And my mother told me he’d died.”
“Because somebody told her that if she wanted you to live, Thomas Mercer had to stay dead.”
I felt tears burning my eyes.
“My mother knew?”
“Some of it.”
“She’s been lying to me for fifteen years?”
“She was trying to protect you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Nobody answered.
Because they knew I was right.
Every lie.
Every secret.
Every fake funeral.
Always supposedly for my protection.
And yet I had never felt less safe.
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Tell me about Daniel.”
Adrian nodded.
“The night he died, Daniel called me.”
“He said he’d found something in your father’s private archive.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
“What was in it?”
“Names. Payments. Dates. Police officers. Attorneys. Company executives.”
“And Thomas?”
I asked.
“His name appeared repeatedly.”
My heart sank.
“As what?”
“Witness.”
I exhaled.
Adrian continued.
“Daniel wanted to give me the ledger.”
“So you met him?”
“At a gas station outside town.”
“And got into his car?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca’s hands trembled.
“What happened?”
“We drove toward a federal field office.”
Her face changed.
“He was going to turn my father in.”
“He was going to expose him.”
“What happened at the bridge?”
Adrian looked down.
“We were followed.”
The SUV became silent except for the road beneath us.
“Two vehicles.”
Adrian’s voice was quieter now.
“They boxed us in.”
“Daniel tried to lose them.”
“He couldn’t.”
“One vehicle hit the rear quarter panel.”
“We spun.”
“The guardrail broke.”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“The car went over.”
Adrian nodded.
“We landed upside down near the river.”
“How did you survive?”
“I got out.”
“And Daniel?”
Adrian didn’t answer immediately.
Rebecca whispered, “Adrian.”
“He was alive.”
She stared at him.
“My brother survived the crash?”
“For a few minutes.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“What did he say?”
“He gave me a flash drive.”
Adrian swallowed.
“And he told me not to trust anyone.”
“Where is the drive?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re safe.”
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“No more secrets.”
“If your father gets that drive, everything Daniel died for disappears.”
“He’s my brother!”
“And he died protecting it!”
Rebecca fell silent.
I looked at Adrian.
“Did my father know Daniel was dead?”
“Yes.”
“And he never contacted Rebecca?”
“He couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because someone was monitoring everyone connected to Lawson.”
I looked at the message on my phone again.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR FATHER ALIVE, COME ALONE.
“What if this isn’t really my father sending the messages?”
Adrian nodded.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“But I heard him.”
“Voices can be recorded.”
“He called me Merry.”
“Someone could know that.”
“How?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
Colleen suddenly slowed.
“There’s a truck ahead.”
A large delivery truck was sitting sideways across the road.
Blocking both lanes.
“Turn around,” Adrian said.
Colleen hit the brakes.
Then headlights appeared behind us.
The dark sedan.
“They trapped us,” Rebecca whispered.
Colleen reversed.
The sedan accelerated toward us.
“Hold on!”
Impact.
Metal screamed.
The SUV spun sideways.
My shoulder slammed against the door.
Glass shattered.
Rebecca screamed.
The SUV stopped.
For a second, nobody moved.
“Everybody okay?”
Adrian shouted.
“I’m fine,” I gasped.
Rebecca nodded.
Colleen touched her forehead.
Blood appeared on her fingers.
“Mom.”
“I’m okay.”
Adrian looked outside.
Two men were getting out of the sedan.
“Move!”
We scrambled from the SUV.
Adrian grabbed my hand.
We ran toward the trees beside the road.
“Rebecca!”
I looked back.
She was helping Colleen.
One of the men shouted.
“STOP!”
We kept running.
Branches tore at my dress.
My shoes sank into mud.
Adrian pulled me deeper into the woods.
“Where are Rebecca and your mother?”
“Behind us.”
“Slow down!”
“We can’t.”
A loud crack echoed through the trees.
I froze.
Adrian dragged me behind a thick trunk.
“Was that—”
“Yes.”
My hands began shaking.
Another crack.
Farther away.
Then silence.
“Rebecca?”
I whispered.
Adrian pulled out his phone.
No signal.
“Stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Meredith.”
“If you leave, I’m coming with you.”
He stared at me for half a second.
Then nodded.
We moved carefully through the trees.
“Rebecca?”
No answer.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
We reached a clearing.
Nobody.
Then my phone vibrated.
One bar of signal.
A text from Rebecca.
DON’T COME BACK.
THEY HAVE COLLEEN.
My stomach dropped.
I showed Adrian.
His face changed.
Another message appeared.
This one from the unknown number.
THE HOUSE.
TWENTY MINUTES.
COME ALONE OR COLLEEN DIES TOO.
Attached was a photograph.
Colleen was sitting inside the dark sedan.
Blood running down her forehead.
A man held something against her side.
Adrian grabbed the phone.
“No.”
“Your mother is in that car.”
“They want you.”
“Then I’ll go.”
“Absolutely not.”
“She’s going to die.”
“And so will you.”
I stared at him.
“Then tell me why.”
“What?”
“Tell me why I’m worth all of this.”
He looked away.
“No.”
“You faked your death.”
“Meredith—”
“My brother died.”
“Stop.”
“My father disappeared for fifteen years.”
“Please.”
“People are chasing us.”
My voice broke.
“Why me?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Because Thomas didn’t just discover the ledger.”
“What did he discover?”
“He created it.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Your father collected the evidence for years.”
“Then why do they need me?”
“Because he split the evidence.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“But he believed you did.”
“Me?”
“Thomas told them he’d hidden the most important part somewhere only his daughter could access.”
I shook my head.
“I was fourteen.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t have anything.”
“They don’t believe that.”
My mind raced.
Childhood boxes.
Old photographs.
Birthday gifts.
Things my father had left behind.
Then I remembered something.
A music box.
Small.
Wooden.
My father gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday.
After he supposedly died, my mother had tried to throw it away.
I’d screamed until she gave it back.
I’d kept it ever since.
It was sitting inside a box in my apartment.
“Oh my God.”
Adrian saw my expression.
“What?”
“I might have it.”
“What?”
“My father gave me something.”
“What?”
“A music box.”
“When?”
“A year before he disappeared.”
Adrian’s face went pale.
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
He cursed.
“What?”
“The day after my funeral, someone broke into your apartment.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“I saw the police report.”
“You were watching me?”
“I was watching everything.”
“Was anything taken?”
“You told the police nothing was missing.”
“Because nothing was.”
Adrian stared at me.
“Then they didn’t find it.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
This time I answered immediately.
“What do you want?”
A man’s voice replied.
“The same thing your father stole.”
“Let Colleen go.”
“Bring us the key.”
“What key?”
The man laughed softly.
“Ask Adrian.”
I looked at him.
His face told me enough.
“You know.”
“Meredith—”
“What key?”
The voice on the phone continued.
“He never told you?”
My grip tightened.
“Told me what?”
“The reason he proposed.”
I stopped breathing.
Adrian’s eyes widened.
“Hang up.”
The man laughed again.
“Ask your fiancé why he started dating you.”
I looked at Adrian.
“That’s enough,” he snapped.
“Ask him,” the voice said.
“Hang up, Meredith.”
“Why did you start dating me?”
Adrian said nothing.
My chest tightened.
“Answer me.”
“I loved you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He looked broken.
“Why did you approach me?”
Silence.
Then Adrian whispered, “Your father asked me to.”
Everything inside me went still.
“What?”
“Thomas wanted someone near you.”
“You met me because of him?”
“At first.”
I stepped backward.
Every memory suddenly felt poisoned.
Our first coffee.
Our first date.
The night he told me he loved me.
The proposal.
“Was any of it real?”
“Yes.”
“Which part?”
“All of it after I knew you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I fell in love with you.”
“Did my father tell you to propose too?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you to fake your death?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you to let me bury someone else?”
“No.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“I don’t know who you are.”
The man on the phone spoke again.
“Now you understand.”
I had forgotten he was still there.
“Twenty minutes, Meredith.”
The call ended.
I stared at Adrian.
Then I started walking.
“Where are you going?”
“The house.”
“No.”
He grabbed my arm.
I pulled free.
“They have your mother.”
“It’s a trap.”
“I know.”
“Then why would you go?”
“Because I’m finished letting everyone else make decisions for me.”
He stared at me.
I continued walking.
After several seconds, he followed.
We reached a narrow road.
The address was less than a mile away.
I recognized the neighborhood immediately.
Memories came rushing back.
My mother’s car.
Summer afternoons.
Waiting outside that mysterious house.
The man behind the curtain.
We approached on foot.
The house appeared between the trees.
It looked abandoned.
Peeling paint.
Broken shutters.
Overgrown grass.
“This is it,” I whispered.
Adrian reached beneath his jacket.
“Stay behind me.”
“No.”
“Meredith.”
“They asked for me.”
“Exactly.”
I walked toward the porch.
The front door was already open.
Inside, the house smelled like dust.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then I heard something upstairs.
A floorboard creaked.
“Dad?”
Adrian whispered, “Don’t.”
I climbed the stairs.
“Merry?”
The voice came from the end of the hallway.
My knees nearly buckled.
“Dad?”
I ran.
Adrian followed.
I pushed open the bedroom door.
An older man stood beside the window.
Gray hair.
Thin shoulders.
The same eyes from the photograph.
The same eyes I’d seen every morning in my own mirror.
He stared at me.
His face crumpled.
“My little girl.”
I couldn’t move.
Fifteen years disappeared.
“Dad?”
He stepped toward me.
Then Adrian raised his hand.
“Stop.”
My father looked at him.
His expression instantly hardened.
“You.”
Adrian positioned himself between us.
“Show me your hands.”
My father slowly raised them.
“Still following orders, Adrian?”
“What?”
I whispered.
Adrian didn’t move.
My father looked at me.
“He hasn’t told you everything.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Dad shook his head.
“You know what he wants you to know.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Thomas, don’t.”
My father laughed bitterly.
“Thomas?”
He looked at me.
“Even that isn’t true.”
My stomach dropped.
“What isn’t?”
“My name.”
I stared at him.
“Then what’s your name?”
Before he could answer, the bedroom door slammed shut behind us.
A lock clicked from the outside.
Adrian spun around.
“No!”
He grabbed the handle.
Locked.
My father backed toward the window.
“They followed you.”
“You sent the address!”
“I didn’t send anything.”
I froze.
“What?”
“I never texted you.”
My blood turned cold.
“The photograph?”
“Not me.”
“The phone call?”
“I called you once.”
“The messages?”
“No.”
Adrian slammed his shoulder against the door.
“Get away from the window!”
Too late.
A dark sedan pulled into the driveway.
Then another.
Then the delivery truck from the road.
Men stepped out.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
My father looked at me.
“Listen carefully.”
He pulled something from beneath his shirt.
A small silver key on a chain.
He placed it in my hand.
“This opens the music box.”
I stared at him.
“The music box doesn’t have a lock.”
“Not the one you can see.”
Footsteps thundered downstairs.
My father closed my fingers around the key.
“When you open it, you’ll understand everything.”
“Everything about what?”
“About Lawson.”
“About Eric?”
Pain crossed his face.
“Eric was trying to reach you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I thought staying dead would keep you safe.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“It didn’t.”
“I know.”
The footsteps reached the stairs.
Adrian backed toward us.
“We need another way out.”
My father pointed toward the closet.
“There’s a crawlspace.”
Adrian opened it.
A narrow opening led between the walls.
“Go.”
I climbed inside.
My father followed.
Adrian was last.
Seconds later, the bedroom door crashed open.
Voices filled the room.
“Where are they?”
We crawled through darkness.
Dust filled my mouth.
My father’s breathing was heavy behind me.
Then the passage opened above a small downstairs pantry.
Adrian kicked through a wooden panel.
We dropped into the room.
“Back door,” my father whispered.
We ran.
Outside, the yard was empty.
Almost.
A woman stood near the tree line.
My mother.
I stopped so suddenly Adrian crashed into me.
“Mom?”
She looked older than I’d seen her just weeks earlier.
Terrified.
And she was holding a pistol.
Pointed directly at my father.
“Meredith,” she said.
“Move away from him.”
I stared between them.
“Dad?”
My father raised his hands.
“Elaine.”
My mother began crying.
“I told you never to come back.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always had a choice.”
I stepped between them.
“Mom, put it down.”
“No.”
Her hand trembled.
“Meredith, you don’t understand who that man is.”
“He’s my father.”
Her expression shattered.
“No, sweetheart.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
The men inside the house were shouting.
Getting closer.
But suddenly none of that mattered.
My mother stared at the man I’d called Dad for fourteen years.
Then she said the words that made the entire world disappear beneath my feet.
“Thomas Mercer isn’t your father.”
I couldn’t breathe.
My mother continued.
“Your real father is Robert Lawson.”
Rebecca’s father.
The man everyone had been running from.
The man whose company had destroyed lives.
The man who apparently wanted the evidence hidden inside my childhood music box.
I stared at her.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Meredith—”
“NO!”
My phone vibrated.
A new photograph appeared.
Rebecca was sitting beside Colleen.
Both were alive.
Behind them stood the gray-suited man.
The message beneath the picture contained one sentence.
COME HOME, MEREDITH.
YOUR FATHER HAS BEEN WAITING TO MEET YOU.
