Chapter 15
Noah said Melissa called the cabin their secret place.
She made him wait in the car while she met a man inside.
“Was it Mercer?” Ruiz asked.
Noah shook his head.
“The doctor.”
Dr. Hale had stored boxes in the cabin.
Noah remembered a locked room beneath the floor.
Melissa warned him there were snakes inside.
Dad wanted police to raid the property.
Ruiz insisted we stay behind.
This time, I agreed.
I was tired of being bait.
Officers reached the cabin shortly after midnight.
It was empty.
They found blood in the kitchen and tire tracks leading toward the lake.
The room beneath the floor contained medical equipment, restraints, and years of surveillance photographs.
Mom was not there.
Ruiz sent us pictures of the items.
Noah recognized a red blanket.
Melissa had wrapped him in it when she took him to the cabin.
A strand of his hair was found tied around a plastic tube.
Dr. Hale had been collecting samples from him.
“Why?” Dad asked.
The answer came from a laboratory invoice.
Hale had ordered repeated DNA comparisons between Noah and an unnamed male.
Dad stopped breathing.
Rebecca read the report twice.
Noah was not a genetic match to the unnamed person.
“Was he testing whether I’m Noah’s father?” Dad whispered.
Mom had never given Dad a reason to doubt her.
The tests were another weapon.
Someone intended to convince Dad that Noah belonged to another man.
I looked at the dates.
The first test had been performed before Mom’s crash.
Melissa and Thomas had planned to destroy our family before killing her.
Ruiz found another report in the cabin.
It compared Noah’s DNA to Dad’s.
The result showed a match.
Noah was his son.
Dad held him until he fell asleep.
At dawn, Mom’s voice came over the police emergency channel.
“Daniel, if you can hear me, don’t come to the lake.”
The transmission lasted six seconds.
Officers traced it to an old ranger station.
Dr. Hale had forced Mom to speak into a radio.
When police entered the station, they found him unconscious.
He had been shot.
Mom was gone.
Hale survived long enough to say one name.
“Cole.”
Mercer had taken Mom from him.
Hale confessed that Mercer ordered the fake medical records after the crash.
He admitted drugging Mom and monitoring her.
He also admitted covering Noah’s injuries.
“I thought Melissa only disciplined him,” he said.
Dad lunged toward the hospital bed.
Ruiz held him back.
“You saw bruises on an eight-year-old child,” Dad shouted.
Hale turned away.
He gave police the location of Mercer’s private property near the lake.
A storm was moving toward Texas.
Rain began before officers reached the property.
They found Mercer’s car beside a flooded access road.
Mom’s torn jacket lay near the water.
Dad tried to follow the search team.
Rebecca blocked him.
“You have two children standing behind you.”
“That’s their mother out there.”
“And you are their father.”
He looked at us.
For once, he stayed.
Search dogs followed Mom’s scent into the woods.
Two hours later, they found a small shed.
Inside was a chair, rope, and fresh blood.
Words had been scratched into the wooden floor.
EMMA, TRUST THE SONG.
I knew exactly what Mom meant.
She used to sing one song whenever Noah and I were afraid.
Its first words were about a lantern near the shore.
There was an old boathouse called The Lantern on the far side of the lake.
May you like
Mercer hadn’t taken Mom into the woods.
He had taken her across the water.
