Chapter 6 - The Last Piece
For the first time in twenty-two years, Daniel Mercer stopped protecting the Mercer name.
He protected the truth instead.
His attorneys secured copies of the offshore records.
Rachel contacted federal investigators through channels Richard could not easily influence.
Former employees agreed to speak.
A retired bank officer admitted falsifying compliance reports.
The conspiracy began to unravel.
Then someone broke into Jack's shelter locker.
Nothing valuable was stolen.
Only papers.
Jack disappeared that same night.
Daniel found him the next morning under an elevated train track.
“You can't stay here.”
Jack looked at him.
“I've stayed in worse places.”
“Richard knows about the letter.”
Jack's expression changed.
“How?”
“He admitted my father wrote one.”
Jack stood.
“We move.”
Daniel almost smiled at the choice of words.
Twenty-two years earlier, Jack had said the same thing to Thomas.
Daniel arranged a room at a veterans' residence under another name.
Jack resisted.
“It's not charity.”
“Looks expensive.”
“Then consider it witness protection with better sheets.”
Jack laughed for the first time.
They spent the afternoon reviewing Thomas's final years.
Thomas had lived under several identities.
He worked small jobs.
Bookkeeper.
Marina manager.
Warehouse supervisor.
Nothing that attracted attention.
Daniel struggled to reconcile that image with the father he remembered arriving home in tailored suits.
“Was he miserable?”
Jack thought about it.
“Sometimes.”
“Did he regret leaving?”
“Every day.”
“Why didn't you force him to call me?”
“I tried.”
Daniel looked at him.
Jack continued.
“When you sold your first company, he saw it in the newspaper.”
Daniel swallowed.
“He kept the clipping.”
“When you married, he found a photograph online.”
Daniel looked away.
“He had no right.”
“No.”
Jack agreed immediately.
Daniel looked back.
“He made you promise not to defend him, didn't he?”
Jack smiled sadly.
“Near the end.”
Daniel shook his head.
“That sounds like him.”
Jack reached into his bag.
He removed several photographs.
Daniel at thirty.
Daniel at thirty-two.
His wedding.
A magazine cover.
His father had collected them.
Daniel touched one carefully.
“Where's the letter?”
Jack watched him.
“You have enough evidence now.”
“Then give it to me.”
“Tomorrow.”
Daniel stared.
“Why tomorrow?”
“Because there's something I need to do first.”
Jack asked Daniel to drive him to a cemetery outside the city.
They stopped at a grave marked:
THOMAS ANDREW MERCER
1947–2004
The official grave.
Empty, according to everything they now knew.
Jack stood beside it.
“Your father hated this.”
Daniel frowned.
“The grave?”
“The idea of you standing here.”
Daniel stared at the stone.
“I came every year.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“He did too.”
Daniel turned.
“What?”
“Once.”
Jack looked at the grave.
“Three years after he disappeared.”
Daniel could barely speak.
“He came here?”
“At night.”
“Why?”
“To see what he'd done.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Jack continued.
“He stood exactly where you're standing.”
“What did he say?”
Jack looked at Daniel.
“He said, ‘I thought I was saving my son. I think I may have only taught him that I abandoned him.’”
Daniel's jaw tightened.
For years, he had privately believed exactly that.
His father's death had felt like abandonment even when logic told him otherwise.
Now he understood why.
“He was afraid to come back.”
“Yes.”
“But he wanted to.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at the headstone.
“I hate him a little.”
Jack nodded.
“You're allowed.”
Daniel's eyes filled.
“And I miss him.”
“You're allowed that too.”
They stood in the snow.
No billionaire.
No homeless veteran.
Just two men connected by the same dead man.
The next morning, Rachel called.
Federal investigators had agreed to reopen the old financial records.
Richard's attorneys were already negotiating.
Three former executives had been contacted.
The investigation was real.
Daniel went to Jack.
“It's time.”
Jack nodded.
He carried a battered backpack.
They drove to an old storage facility near Cicero.
Jack rented a small unit under his own name fifteen years earlier.
Inside were almost no possessions.
An Army duffel.
A wooden chair.
Two boxes.
Jack opened the second.
Inside was a metal ammunition case.
He unlocked it.
There were documents.
Photographs.
Copies of accounts.
And one cream-colored envelope.
Daniel stopped.
His name was written across the front.
DANIEL.
He recognized the handwriting instantly.
His father's.
Jack did not touch it.
“He wrote that six days before he died.”
Daniel stared.
“His real death.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you give it to me then?”
“He made me swear.”
“Why?”
“He believed Richard still had enough power to destroy the evidence and hurt you.”
Daniel looked at Jack.
“And you believed him.”
“I'd already lost almost everything because Richard wanted me silent.”
Daniel slowly reached toward the letter.
Jack placed a hand over it.
“One more thing.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Thomas told me that if the day ever came when you could expose Richard without becoming him, then you were ready.”
Daniel frowned.
“Without becoming him?”
“He was afraid anger would make you ruthless.”
Daniel stared at the envelope.
“Maybe it has.”
Jack shook his head.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you didn't destroy Richard when you had the first evidence.”
Daniel looked up.
“You investigated.”
Jack removed his hand.
“You searched for truth before revenge.”
Daniel picked up the envelope.
It felt impossibly light for something that had crossed twenty-two years.
He broke the seal.
Inside were twelve handwritten pages.
The first line stopped him.
My dear Danny,
If Jack has finally placed this letter in your hands, then I have failed to come home—but the truth has survived me.
Daniel's vision blurred.
He sat.
May you like
And began to read.
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