PART 4
My father’s face filled the laptop screen.
For thirty-four years, I had known him only through fading photographs.
Samuel Collins.
The man my mother said had abandoned us when I was five.
Years later, she told me he had died overseas.
I had mourned him twice.
Once as the father who chose to leave me.
And again as the father I would never have the chance to confront.
Yet there he was.
Alive.
Standing inside my mother’s condo seventeen minutes before her death.
“No,” I whispered.
My legs gave way, and I gripped the kitchen table to keep from falling.
“That can’t be him.”
The frozen image was grainy, but there was no mistaking his face.
The same deep-set eyes.
The same crooked nose.
The narrow scar cutting through his right eyebrow.
I had traced that scar with my finger in dozens of childhood photographs.
My mother once told me he had gotten it while protecting her during a robbery.
Now I wondered whether that story had been a lie too.
Detective Hale leaned toward the laptop.
“Ortiz, stop the video.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“We need to preserve the recovered footage.”
“You were the one who told me to play it.”
“That was before a new suspect appeared.”
Emily stepped closer to the screen.
“He isn’t a suspect.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Hale’s expression remained calm, but something changed in his eyes.
“You recognize him?” he asked.
Emily nodded.
“His name is Samuel Collins.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew my father?”
“He saved my life.”
David began laughing again.
Even handcuffed, with an officer holding his arm, he still found a way to sound cruel.
“This gets better every minute.”
Emily ignored him.
She kept her eyes on me.
“Your father found me after I escaped from Daniel.”
“Escaped from where?”
“The basement.”
Her voice trembled.
“I was unconscious when he found me near an abandoned service road outside Savannah. I had burns on my arms and smoke damage in my lungs. I couldn’t remember my own name.”
David shook his head.
“She is insane.”
Emily’s body stiffened.
“You kept me underground for eighteen months.”
“I never touched you.”
“You removed every mirror because you didn’t want me to see what you had done to my face.”
“Stop lying!”
The uniformed officer tightened his grip on David.
Emily pulled her hair away from her neck.
A thick white scar ran beneath her ear and disappeared under her collar.
“Your father paid for my surgery,” she told me. “He found a safe house. He helped me create a new identity.”
I stared at her.
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he had been investigating the Mercer family for years.”
Brenda suddenly stepped forward.
“That is enough.”
Detective Ortiz blocked her.
“Stay where you are.”
“You don’t understand what that man did to my family,” Brenda snapped.
“What did my father do?” I demanded.
She looked directly at me.
“He destroyed it.”
The corrupted video flickered again.
A burst of static filled the speakers.
Then the image sharpened.
My father stood inside my mother’s study with his hood lowered.
Eleanor stared at him in disbelief.
“Samuel,” she whispered.
He quickly crossed the room and took her face between his hands.
“I’m sorry.”
My mother began crying.
Then she slapped him.
The sound echoed through my kitchen.
My father didn’t defend himself.
He simply stood there and accepted it.
“You promised you would never come back,” she said.
“I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“Daniel knows Emily is alive.”
My mother’s anger disappeared.
She looked toward Brenda.
Brenda remained beside the desk, watching them with hatred.
“You brought her here?” my mother asked.
“She’s safe for now,” my father replied. “But Daniel found the motel in Virginia. He was there less than an hour after we moved her.”
My mother covered her mouth.
“He knows about the evidence?”
“He knows you have something.”
“I sent copies to my attorney.”
“That won’t stop him.”
Brenda laughed in the recording.
“You two always did enjoy pretending to be heroes.”
My father turned toward her.
“You should be in prison.”
“So should you.”
“For what?”
“For abandoning your wife and child.”
He took a step toward her.
“I disappeared because your husband put a gun against Sarah’s head.”
The kitchen seemed to spin around me.
“What?” I whispered.
On the screen, my mother closed her eyes.
Her face crumpled.
My father continued.
“Victor told me that if I testified, Sarah would disappear. She was five years old.”
Brenda’s expression was cold.
“My husband was protecting his family.”
“He threatened a child.”
“He threatened leverage.”
My stomach turned.
Victor Mercer.
David’s father.
Brenda’s husband.
I barely remembered him.
Brenda had always told me he died in a boating accident when David was a teenager.
Apparently, death was another word this family used very loosely.
My father pointed at her.
“Victor ordered the murders of three witnesses. He laundered money through charities, retirement funds, and property companies. I had enough evidence to put him away for life.”
“And yet you ran,” Brenda said.
“I protected my daughter.”
“You protected yourself.”
My mother suddenly spoke.
“He did what we agreed.”
I looked at the screen.
My father stared at her.
“You never told Sarah?”
“How could I?”
“You told me she knew.”
“I told her you left.”
His face filled with pain.
“You made her hate me.”
“I made her forget to look for you.”
My eyes burned.
All my life, I had believed my father had chosen another life over me.
My mother had built that lie carefully.
Not because she hated him.
Because she was afraid I would search for him.
Afraid the Mercer family would find us.
On the recording, my father lowered his voice.
“I watched her from a distance.”
My mother’s eyes filled with tears.
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“I saw her graduate.”
I stopped breathing.
“I stood across the street when she opened her first office.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
“I saw her wedding.”
My father’s voice broke.
“And I watched her marry Victor Mercer’s son.”
My knees weakened.
My mother turned away from him.
“I didn’t know who David was.”
“You should have called me when you found out.”
“I did.”
My father looked confused.
My mother walked to her desk and pulled open a drawer.
“I called the number you gave me.”
“What happened?”
“A man answered.”
“What man?”
“He said you had been dead for three years.”
My father’s face went completely still.
“No one should have known that number.”
Brenda smiled.
“We knew.”
My father turned toward her.
“What did you do?”
“What Victor should have done thirty-four years ago.”
“Where is he?”
She laughed softly.
“You still think my husband is dead?”
Jason made a choking sound behind me.
He stared at his mother.
“Dad is alive?”
Brenda didn’t answer him.
Her eyes remained fixed on the laptop.
David looked less surprised.
That told me everything.
He already knew.
“You knew your father was alive?” I asked.
David said nothing.
“Answer me!”
“He is sick,” David finally replied.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“He has been living outside the country.”
“For how long?”
“Sarah, this is not relevant.”
“Your supposedly dead father threatened me when I was five!”
“You don’t remember that.”
“So it doesn’t matter?”
David looked away.
On the recording, my father grabbed Brenda’s arm.
“Where is Victor?”
“Closer than you think.”
“Where?”
Brenda leaned toward him.
“He attended your daughter’s wedding.”
My father released her as though she had burned him.
My mind raced through every face from that day.
Friends.
Coworkers.
Caterers.
Guests I barely knew.
David had insisted on controlling the invitation list.
He said it would reduce my stress.
Had Victor Mercer stood in the church while I married his son?
Had the man who threatened to kill me watched me walk down the aisle?
Detective Hale suddenly reached toward the laptop.
“That’s enough.”
Ortiz grabbed his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“We have confirmation that Victor Mercer may be alive. This footage is now part of a federal-level investigation.”
“You can’t close the video in the middle of evidence recovery.”
“I’m the lead detective.”
“And I’m the forensic officer.”
Their eyes locked.
Something unspoken passed between them.
Hale slowly lowered his hand.
“Continue,” he said.
But his jaw had tightened.
The video resumed.
My father turned toward my mother.
“We have to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Daniel poisoned your medication.”
The room went silent.
My mother stared at him.
“What?”
“I had one of the capsules tested.”
My heart stopped.
David began struggling against the officer.
“This is fabricated!”
Nobody listened.
My father pulled a small plastic bag from his coat.
Inside it was one of my mother’s heart pills.
“The capsule contains digitalis in a potentially lethal concentration,” he said. “If you take enough of these, your heart will stop.”
My mother’s hand moved toward her chest.
“I took one this morning.”
My father’s face changed.
“How many have you taken this week?”
“I don’t know. Four, maybe five.”
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
Brenda moved toward the door.
My father blocked her.
“You’re not leaving.”
“I didn’t touch her medication.”
“You knew about it.”
“I know many things.”
My mother reached for the telephone.
Her hand trembled violently.
Before she could lift the receiver, Brenda knocked it away.
The telephone crashed to the floor.
That was the moment we had already seen.
My father grabbed Brenda and pulled her away from the desk.
My mother stumbled backward.
Then someone pounded on the study door.
“Mom!” Jason’s voice shouted from the other side. “Open the door!”
Jason covered his face with both hands.
“I remember that.”
I turned toward him.
“You were upstairs?”
“I told you I was waiting in the car.”
“You lied.”
“I heard shouting through the intercom. I went up.”
On the screen, Jason forced open the study door.
He was wearing a dark suit.
Gold cuff links gleamed at his wrists.
He looked younger.
Healthier.
Terrified.
“What is happening?” he asked.
Brenda rushed toward him.
“Get me out of here.”
My father stepped between them and the door.
“No one leaves until the police arrive.”
Jason stared at him.
“Who are you?”
Brenda answered.
“A dead man.”
My mother suddenly gasped.
She grabbed her chest.
Her knees buckled.
Jason lunged forward and caught her before she hit the floor.
One of his cuff links caught on her cardigan and tore free.
It dropped beneath her body.
The evidence bag in Emily’s hand suddenly made sense.
Jason’s cuff link had been found under my mother because he had tried to catch her.
Not because he had killed her.
“Call an ambulance!” my father shouted.
Jason reached for his phone.
Brenda slapped it out of his hand.
“Are you crazy?” he yelled.
“If the police come, we all go to prison.”
“She’s dying!”
“She is already dead.”
My mother was still conscious.
She looked up at Brenda.
“I can hear you.”
For the first time, Brenda’s confidence slipped.
My father lifted my mother into his arms.
“We’re taking her downstairs.”
He carried her toward the door.
Jason followed.
Brenda remained behind.
Before leaving the study, my father looked directly at the hidden camera.
At first, I thought it was an accident.
Then he spoke.
“Eleanor, is this one of your cameras?”
My mother nodded weakly.
My father walked closer to it.
“If Sarah ever sees this, she needs to know I never stopped loving her.”
Tears blurred the screen.
“I did not abandon you, sweetheart,” he continued. “I stayed away because I thought it was the only way to keep you alive.”
My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.
“And if Eleanor doesn’t survive tonight, Daniel Mercer is responsible.”
David shouted from behind me.
“Turn it off!”
The officer forced him back against the counter.
My father’s recorded face remained on the screen.
“He replaced her medication,” he said. “He has done this before. He poisons slowly so the deaths appear natural.”
Emily began shaking.
“He did that to me.”
Everyone looked toward her.
“Before he locked me away,” she explained, “he gave me pills for anxiety. I became weak. Confused. I stopped remembering conversations.”
Her eyes met mine.
“He was preparing to declare me mentally incompetent.”
David shook his head violently.
“She was unstable before I met her.”
Emily’s expression became almost peaceful.
“That’s what you told everyone.”
She turned toward me.
“That is what he would have told people about you.”
I remembered every time David called me emotional.
Every time he insisted I was exhausted.
Every time he suggested I was becoming forgetful after my mother died.
A wave of nausea hit me.
“Did you ever give me medication?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you put anything in my food?”
“Of course not.”
“What about the vitamins you started bringing me after the funeral?”
His silence answered me.
Detective Ortiz looked toward one of the officers.
“Secure every medication and supplement in the house.”
David’s face hardened.
“You need a separate warrant for that.”
“The current warrant includes prescription records and suspected toxins.”
He looked toward Hale.
“You said this would be handled.”
The words escaped before David could stop them.
Every head turned.
Detective Hale’s expression didn’t change.
But Ortiz slowly looked at him.
“What did he mean?”
David closed his mouth.
Hale spoke calmly.
“He is attempting to create mistrust.”
“No,” Emily whispered.
She stared at Hale.
Her face had gone completely white.
“I know you.”
Hale turned toward her.
“We met during your interviews.”
“Not recently.”
“Ms. Carter, you’re under significant stress.”
“You were there.”
“Where?”
“The first time I escaped.”
The kitchen became silent.
Emily stepped backward.
“I reached a gas station outside Savannah. A police officer found me.”
Her eyes stayed locked on Hale’s face.
“I told him my husband had kidnapped me.”
Hale’s voice remained steady.
“You were suffering from trauma.”
“He drove me back.”
My skin prickled.
Emily pointed at him.
“You told the gas-station clerk I was a psychiatric patient.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“You put me in the back of your patrol car.”
“I have never worked patrol in Georgia.”
“You had different hair.”
Hale looked toward Ortiz.
“This woman’s memory is unreliable.”
Emily shook her head.
“I remember your voice.”
Hale stepped toward her.
The uniformed officers immediately became alert.
Emily reached inside her coat.
Hale’s hand moved toward his gun.
“Don’t,” he warned.
She slowly pulled out the photograph of herself standing beside my mother.
Then she turned it over.
Something was written on the back.
My mother’s handwriting.
The officer who returned Emily to Daniel now calls himself Marcus Hale.
Detective Ortiz took the photograph.
Her eyes moved across the words.
Then she looked at Hale.
“Put your weapon on the floor.”
Hale gave a humorless smile.
“Lena, think carefully.”
“I said put it down.”
“Your career will not survive this.”
“Neither will yours.”
Hale’s eyes moved toward the two uniformed officers.
“Arrest Detective Ortiz. She is interfering with an active investigation.”
Neither officer moved.
Ortiz drew her gun.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Hale sighed.
Then he looked at David.
“You couldn’t keep quiet for another ten minutes?”
David’s face twisted.
“You promised to destroy the card.”
“I was going to.”
My heart began pounding.
Hale had not come to investigate my mother’s death.
He had come to collect the evidence.
He had brought officers and a warrant so no one would question him when he removed everything from my home.
Detective Ortiz took one cautious step forward.
“Marcus, don’t do this.”
“That isn’t his name,” Emily said.
Hale looked at her.
A small smile crossed his face.
“You always were difficult to kill.”
Emily flinched.
Hale’s hand moved with terrifying speed.
He drew his gun.
Ortiz fired first.
The shot shattered a cabinet above his shoulder.
Brenda screamed.
Hale grabbed me and dragged me against his chest.
The barrel of his weapon pressed beneath my jaw.
Everyone froze.
“Drop it, Lena.”
Ortiz kept her gun aimed at him.
“Let Sarah go.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
The uniformed officers raised their weapons.
Hale tightened his arm around my throat.
“Lower every gun, or she dies before anyone takes a second shot.”
Slowly, Ortiz lowered her weapon.
The other officers followed.
Hale began moving backward toward the hallway, dragging me with him.
David watched with disturbing calm.
“Tell her,” Hale said.
David looked at me.
“Tell me what?” I demanded.
David’s eyes were empty.
“Marcus Hale is a real detective,” he said. “At least, he was.”
Hale smiled against my hair.
“But that is not the name he was born with.”
Emily’s lips trembled.
“What is your real name?”
Hale looked directly at Brenda.
For the first time, she appeared afraid of him.
“Tell them, Mother.”
Jason stared at her.
“Mother?”
Brenda’s face collapsed.
Hale laughed softly.
“David was never her only son.”
My blood ran cold.
“My name is Matthew Mercer,” he whispered.
David’s older brother.
The son Brenda had never mentioned.
The police officer who had returned Emily to her captor.
The detective assigned to investigate my mother’s death.
Hale dragged me farther into the hallway.
“Where are you taking her?” David asked.
Matthew looked at him with contempt.
“To finish what you were too weak to finish.”
A telephone began ringing inside the kitchen.
Not my phone.
Not David’s.
The sound came from my mother’s laptop.
An incoming video call had appeared on the screen.
The caller had no name.
Only three words:
SAMUEL COLLINS—SECURE LINE
My father was alive.
Ortiz reached toward the laptop.
Matthew pressed the gun harder against my skin.
“Do not answer that call.”
The ringing continued.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then the call connected by itself.
My father’s face appeared on the screen.
He was older than in the recording.
His hair was completely gray.
Blood covered one side of his face.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Sarah,” he said urgently, “listen to me.”
Matthew’s body went rigid.
My father glanced over his shoulder as though someone was coming.
Then he spoke six words that silenced everyone in the house.
“Your mother did not die that night.”
The screen suddenly went black.
And from somewhere beneath the kitchen floor, a woman began screaming my name…………………………………….
TO BE CONTINUED IN LAST PART…
