Chapter 5
My mother lived in the same narrow brick house where I had grown up.
The porch still leaned slightly to the left.
The rosebushes still refused to die.
Under different circumstances, seeing it would have made me feel safe.
Instead, three black SUVs surrounded the property.
Agents checked the windows.
A bomb technician examined the mailbox.
Hale opened the back door of the vehicle and helped me into a wheelchair.
“You stay behind me.”
“This is my mother’s house.”
“And someone threatened your child to get what’s inside.”
We entered through the kitchen.
The smell of cinnamon lingered in the air.
My mother had baked that morning.
A pie sat cooling on the counter.
Beside it was a handwritten note.
CLAIRE,
I WENT TO THE PHARMACY.
SOUP IS IN THE FRIDGE.
CALL ME AFTER THE SHOWER.
LOVE, MOM.
My throat tightened.
“Where is she?” I asked.
An agent answered.
“Her car was found outside the pharmacy. Store cameras show her entering at 1:42 p.m. She never came out through the front.”
“Back exit?”
“Camera was disabled.”
I looked at Hale.
“They took her too.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do.”
I reached for my phone.
No new messages.
That frightened me more.
The people controlling this wanted me uncertain.
Fear made people reckless.
I would not give them that satisfaction.
“The music box is upstairs.”
Hale signaled to his team.
Two agents cleared the staircase.
I followed slowly, each bump of the wheelchair sending pain through my incision.
My childhood bedroom had changed very little.
The wallpaper was faded.
My high school debate trophies still lined one shelf.
On the dresser sat a wooden music box with a painted ballerina on top.
I lifted the lid.
The ballerina turned.
A thin melody filled the room.
The hidden compartment beneath the velvet lining was open.
Empty.
My breath stopped.
“No.”
Hale examined the box.
“No forced entry.”
“Someone knew where it was.”
“Who?”
“My mother. Me.”
“Did Ethan ever visit this room?”
“Many times.”
“Did he know about the compartment?”
“I don’t think so.”
Then I remembered our first Christmas after marriage.
Ethan had bought me a diamond bracelet.
I had hidden it inside the music box because I did not want to wear something worth more than my mother’s house.
He had found it.
He had laughed.
“You’re terrible at hiding things, Claire.”
At the time, I thought it was affection.
Now every memory felt contaminated.
“He knew,” I said.
Hale’s radio crackled.
“Movement in the backyard.”
Agents rushed toward the windows.
A figure climbed over the fence.
“Stop!” someone shouted.
The figure ran.
Two agents gave chase.
Hale stayed beside me.
A minute later, they dragged a teenage boy into the room.
He wore a delivery jacket.
Blood ran from a scrape on his forehead.
“I didn’t do anything!” he yelled.
An agent removed a padded envelope from the boy’s pocket.
“It has Claire Blackwell’s name on it.”
The teenager looked terrified.
“A man paid me fifty dollars to put it in the bedroom.”
“What man?” Hale asked.
“He had a cap. Sunglasses. I don’t know.”
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
Hale opened the envelope after a technician checked it.
Inside was a photograph.
My mother sat in a chair.
Her hands were bound.
A newspaper lay across her lap.
Today’s date was visible.
Behind her stood Ethan.
He held the black flash drive between two fingers.
On the back, he had written:
MIDNIGHT.
THE MILL.
BRING HALE.
I stared at the message.
Naomi told me to come alone.
Ethan told me to bring Hale.
They were not working together.
Or they wanted us to believe they were not.
A second item fell from the envelope.
A memory card.
Hale inserted it into an isolated laptop.
A video opened.
Ethan appeared on screen.
His cufflinks were gone.
His white shirt was torn.
A bruise darkened one side of his face.
“Claire,” he began, breathing hard. “I know what you think of me.”
I said nothing.
His recorded eyes seemed to stare directly at me.
“You have every right to hate me. What I did today was unforgivable.”
The words should have meant something.
They did not.
“But Vanessa—Naomi—set me up. She told me she was pregnant. She told me you had been gathering evidence against my family. She made me believe you planned to take our child and disappear.”
I gripped the wheelchair.
There it was.
Not an apology.
An excuse.
“She manipulated me,” he continued. “She manipulated all of us. But the baby is in danger for a reason you do not understand.”
The video shifted.
My mother came into frame.
She looked frightened but unharmed.
“Claire,” she said, “do not give him what he wants.”
Ethan grabbed her shoulder.
“Tell her the truth.”
My mother pressed her lips together.
“What truth?” I whispered.
Ethan’s voice turned cold.
“Ask your mother who your real father was.”
The video ended.
I looked at the woman in the photograph.
My mother.
The person I trusted most.
Hale watched me carefully.
“Is your father alive?”
“He died when I was six.”
“Name?”
“Daniel Mercer.”
The room went silent.
Hale’s analyst looked up from her tablet.
“Mercer?”
“What?” I asked.
She searched quickly.
“Daniel Mercer was chief financial officer of Blackwell Textiles twenty-six years ago.”
I stared at her.
“No. My father was an accountant.”
“For Blackwell Textiles.”
My mother had never told me.
A memory returned.
Richard seeing me for the first time at Ethan’s engagement dinner.
The way his wineglass had paused near his lips.
The way he stared.
“You have your father’s eyes,” he had said.
I assumed he meant Daniel because Ethan must have shown him a photograph.
Now I was not sure.
Hale pulled up an old personnel file.
Daniel Mercer’s photograph appeared.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
A serious mouth.
My eyes.
“What happened to him?” Hale asked.
“Car accident.”
The analyst searched again.
“Daniel Mercer died six weeks after Diane Vale.”
Two car accidents.
Two Blackwell employees.
Six weeks apart.
Both connected to Richard.
My stomach twisted.
“Richard killed them.”
“We don’t know that,” Hale said.
“Yes, we do.”
Hale did not argue.
I looked toward the empty music box.
“Why would my mother know about the drive?”
“Maybe your father gave her information before he died.”
“Then why hide it from me?”
“To protect you.”
The answer made sense.
I hated it anyway.
Protection built from lies was still a cage.
A phone rang downstairs.
One of the agents answered.
Seconds later, he hurried into the room.
“Agent Hale, Blackwell Global’s general counsel is asking for you.”
“Put him on speaker.”
The attorney’s voice trembled through the phone.
“Richard Blackwell wants to negotiate.”
“He’s not in a position to negotiate.”
“He says he can provide the location of the missing infant.”
My entire body went rigid.
“Where is my son?” I demanded.
The attorney hesitated.
“Mr. Blackwell will only speak directly with his daughter.”
No one moved.
I looked at Hale.
“Naomi?”
The attorney answered.
“No.”
My heart began to pound.
“Who?”
A pause.
May you like
Then the words that tore open everything I believed about my life.
“Claire.”
