Chapter 4 - THE JUDGEDetective Reeves read the back of the photograph twice.
Then he quietly ordered every officer in the room to turn off their body-camera upload connections.
Deputy Park stared at him.
“Sir?”
“No wireless transmission. Nothing goes to the department server until I say otherwise.”
“Why?”
He held up the photograph.
“Because Judge Harcourt has administrative access to sealed county records, and somebody may already know what we’re looking at.”
My mother stood at the end of the hallway between two deputies.
Her attorney, Miles Brennan, whispered frantically into her ear.
For once, Evelyn wasn’t listening.
She was looking at the photograph of my father.
“Where did Rachel get that?” she asked.
I turned on her.
“You tell me.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Do you expect me to believe anything you say now?”
Her eyes met mine.
“You should.”
“Rachel recorded herself saying Dad was murdered.”
“She was wrong.”
“She wrote that you weren’t alone.”
Evelyn looked toward Judge Harcourt’s face in the photograph.
Then away.
Reeves noticed.
“So you do know something.”
“I know that my son is grieving and you are turning his wife’s obsession into evidence.”
“Obsession?”
“She became consumed with old foundation records. She saw conspiracies everywhere.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“She gave my office copies of bank statements showing shell companies receiving more than six million dollars.”
My mother’s attorney snapped, “Do not discuss privileged material.”
Adrian looked at him.
“My client is dead. Her instructions regarding disclosure were specific.”
Evelyn’s expression changed when he mentioned six million.
There it was again.
Fear.
Reeves ordered her transported to the station for a formal interview, though he made it clear she was not yet under arrest.
Her lawyer objected.
Evelyn refused.
Then Lily appeared in the hallway.
She had been with a female deputy in the living room.
“Daddy?”
My mother turned.
Lily stopped.
Their eyes met.
And my eight-year-old daughter immediately stepped backward.
That reaction mattered more to me than every piece of paper in the blue room.
I moved between them.
Evelyn’s voice softened.
“Lily, sweetheart.”
“No.”
“Grandma just wants—”
“No!”
Lily covered her ears.
My mother flinched.
“Don’t let her take me downstairs!”
Everyone froze.
I crouched.
“What downstairs?”
Lily started crying again.
“She put me in the dark room.”
My mother shouted, “That never happened!”
Reeves raised a hand.
“Mrs. Mercer, stop talking.”
I held Lily.
“What dark room?”
“When Mom got hurt.”
My heart pounded.
“What happened after Mom fell?”
“I ran out.”
“From your bedroom?”
Lily shook her head.
“I was behind the curtain.”
Pieces rearranged themselves in my mind.
Rachel hadn’t believed Lily was asleep.
My daughter had witnessed everything.
“Mom told me not to come out,” Lily said. “Grandma was yelling. Mom had the suitcase. Then Grandma grabbed Mom.”
I swallowed.
“And Mom fell?”
Lily nodded.
“She rolled.”
Her voice broke.
“I wanted to help her.”
I fought to keep my face calm.
“What happened next?”
“Grandma saw me.”
Evelyn made a sound behind us.
A tiny, involuntary gasp.
Lily pointed toward the kitchen.
“She grabbed me and took me downstairs.”
Our house had a basement.
Wine cellar, furnace room, old storage space.
No “dark room” that I knew of.
Reeves immediately dispatched officers.
Evelyn looked at me.
“Daniel, please.”
It was the first time all night she sounded human.
“What?”
“Don’t let them open it.”
I almost couldn’t believe her.
“You locked my daughter in a basement room while her mother was dying?”
“You don’t understand what was happening.”
“Then make me understand!”
She looked at Lily.
Then at the floor.
“I was trying to protect her.”
“From what?”
No answer.
A deputy called from downstairs.
“Detective!”
We followed him.
Behind a shelving unit in the basement was another door.
Metal.
No interior handle.
My stomach turned.
Police opened it.
The room was barely six feet wide.
Inside stood a small cot.
A lamp.
Several boxes.
And a child’s pink sweater.
I recognized it immediately.
Lily had worn it the weekend Rachel died.
I had searched for that sweater after the funeral because it was in family photographs.
My hands began shaking.
Lily remained upstairs.
Thank God.
Reeves photographed the room.
In one corner, beside the cot, someone had scratched lines into the painted wall.
Four groups.
Five marks each.
Twenty.
“What are those?” I asked.
Reeves didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know.
Then we saw the writing.
Tiny letters.
Childish.
MOM WAKE UP
Again.
MOM WAKE UP
And again.
Twenty times.
Lily had been locked there long enough to write it over and over.
I turned toward the stairs.
My mother stood above us.
Two deputies blocked her path.
I had never hated anyone before.
I understood hatred then.
“You left her here.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Only until the ambulance came.”
“The records say the ambulance arrived thirteen minutes after your call.”
Her face tightened.
Reeves checked something on his phone.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“I pulled the 911 log earlier.”
He turned the screen toward me.
My mother had called 911 at 10:18.
But another emergency call had been placed from the house at 9:41.
Thirty-seven minutes earlier.
“Who called?” I asked.
“Unknown. Call disconnected after nine seconds.”
I looked at Evelyn.
She whispered, “Rachel.”
Reeves shook his head.
“According to your statement, Rachel fell around 10:15.”
Silence.
“So either your original timeline was wrong,” he continued, “or Rachel called for help before she fell.”
My mother sat on the top basement stair.
“She was hysterical.”
“About what?”
“Daniel.”
“No.”
“She discovered things she wasn’t supposed to discover.”
The whole basement went silent.
I stepped closer.
“What things?”
Evelyn looked older suddenly.
Not weaker.
Just tired.
“Your father wasn’t a victim, Daniel.”
I stared at her.
“He was going to expose the foundation.”
“For stealing money?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“The money came later.”
“Then what?”
Her mouth opened.
A gunshot exploded upstairs.
Lily screamed.
I ran.
Reeves was directly behind me.
We reached the main floor and found the front window shattered.
A bullet had buried itself in the wall.
Deputy Park had thrown herself over Lily.
Adrian crouched behind the sofa.
Outside, an engine roared.
Headlights vanished down the driveway.
Reeves shouted for units to pursue.
I dropped beside Lily.
“You okay?”
She nodded frantically.
“I’m okay.”
Then she opened her hand.
A piece of folded paper rested inside.
“What’s that?”
“The policeman gave it to me.”
“What policeman?”
“The one outside.”
My blood went cold.
She pointed toward the broken window.
“He said it was from Grandpa.”
My father had been dead twenty-eight years.
I unfolded the note.
Three words were typed across it.
ASK ABOUT 1998.
Underneath someone had drawn a blue circle.
My mother saw it over my shoulder.
She made a sound like the air had been punched out of her lungs.
“What happened in 1998?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
Adrian did.
“That was the year Rachel’s parents died.”
I turned.
“What?”
He looked as shocked as I was.
“They died in a house fire when Rachel was nine.”
My mind stalled.
Rachel rarely talked about it.
She had been raised by an aunt afterward.
I looked at my mother.
“You knew?”
Evelyn whispered, “I knew her father.”
“How?”
She stared at the blue circle.
Then at Lily.
“Because Rachel’s father worked for your father.”
May you like
The room tilted.
“And the fire wasn’t an accident.”
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