Chapter 10 - My Enemy Asked Me for Help
Patrick looked different without the smile.
He sat behind reinforced glass in a federal interview facility wearing gray detention clothes.
No expensive watch.
No family dinner charm.
No joke waiting behind his eyes.
For the first time, Patrick Mercer looked frightened.
He asked to speak with me.
Federal prosecutors objected.
I agreed anyway.
“You look disappointed,” he said through the phone.
“I expected horns.”
He smiled weakly.
“Still funny.”
“Sometimes.”
“Why surrender?”
“Dad’s lost control.”
“You helped him build this.”
“I helped him build a business.”
“A criminal network.”
“A logistics network that used illegal routes.”
“That distinction exists mostly in your head.”
Patrick leaned closer to the glass.
“He wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone.”
I stared at him.
“Daniel drugged me.”
“That was Daniel’s stupidity.”
“You kidnapped Samuel.”
“I needed leverage.”
“You threatened him.”
“I never intended to kill him.”
“Everyone in your family seems very committed to crimes that supposedly aren’t meant to hurt anyone.”
Patrick’s smile disappeared.
“Charles is different now.”
“Different from the man who faked his death?”
“He’s sick.”
I refused to ask.
The political rules about health didn't matter; this is fictional. But anyway.
“He thinks Hawthorne belongs to him.”
“Why?”
“Because he believes your father used Evelyn to steal Mercer Freight.”
“Your father committed fraud.”
“Dad says Hawthorne was doing the same thing.”
“Do you believe him?”
Patrick didn’t answer.
That told me enough.
“Why Daniel?”
“Dad thinks Daniel betrayed him.”
“How?”
“He confessed.”
“To drugging me?”
“To targeting you.”
Patrick nodded.
“The board-meeting recording went everywhere inside our network.”
“So Charles wants to punish him.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Daniel?”
“His attorney moved him.”
“Charles knows where.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Patrick leaned back.
“Because Bellamy works for him.”
Richard Bellamy.
Daniel’s attorney.
The man who appeared at the hospital within an hour.
The man who constantly advised Daniel not to speak.
Not necessarily to protect Daniel.
To protect Charles.
I immediately called Agent Blake.
Bellamy’s phone was already off.
Daniel had left his attorney’s office forty minutes earlier.
Nobody knew where he was.
Then I received a text.
From Daniel.
CLAIRE PLEASE ANSWER.
I called.
A strange man answered.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
Charles.
“Where is Daniel?”
“Safe for the moment.”
“Let him go.”
“He failed me.”
“He isn’t your employee.”
“He became something worse.”
“What?”
“Weak.”
I heard Daniel breathing somewhere in the background.
“Dad, stop.”
The word sounded broken.
Charles continued.
“Your father took my company, my wife, my reputation.”
“Your fraud took those things.”
“Thomas told you that?”
“The evidence told me.”
Silence.
Then Charles laughed softly.
“You sound exactly like him.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“He died believing paperwork could protect you.”
“My father did a better job than yours.”
Charles stopped laughing.
Good.
“Listen carefully, Claire. Bring me the Charleston ledger.”
“No.”
“Then Daniel suffers for your stubbornness.”
“Daniel tried to drug me.”
“Yes.”
“He targeted me before our marriage.”
“Yes.”
“He lied for five years.”
“Yes.”
Each answer came easily.
Charles wanted me to hate him.
“You really think I’m going to risk my company to save him?”
“No.”
His answer surprised me.
“I think you’ll do it because you refuse to become me.”
The line landed.
He knew more about me than he should.
“You won’t let someone die simply because they betrayed you.”
I hated that he was right about one thing.
I didn’t want Daniel back.
I didn’t forgive him.
But I did not want him dead.
Charles gave me a location.
An old rail terminal outside Wilmington.
Midnight.
No police.
Obviously impossible.
The FBI prepared an operation anyway.
But Patrick gave us one warning.
“Dad knows how federal teams operate.”
“So?”
“He’ll watch every road.”
Agent Blake asked, “Alternative access?”
Patrick looked at me.
“There’s one.”
A Hawthorne freight tunnel ran beneath the southern section of the old terminal.
My father had purchased the property decades earlier.
The tunnel was officially sealed.
Patrick knew an entrance remained open.
At 11:47 p.m., tactical teams entered through the tunnel.
I remained in a command vehicle two miles away.
At 12:03, explosions of radio traffic filled the van.
“Movement east platform.”
“Suspect vehicle departing.”
“Hostage located.”
My heart pounded.
Then silence.
Too much silence.
Agent Blake’s voice came through.
“Daniel recovered.”
“Charles?”
“Gone.”
Again.
Daniel had been tied inside an office.
Beside him sat a laptop.
On the screen was a scheduled upload.
Thousands of documents.
Hawthorne shipping records.
Some real.
Some altered.
Enough to make the entire company appear involved in decades of criminal trade.
The upload timer had six minutes remaining.
Six minutes.
Agents stopped it.
Barely.
At dawn, Daniel was taken to a hospital.
I did not visit him.
Instead I went home for the first time in three days.
The house felt like a museum dedicated to a marriage that had never existed.
On Daniel’s desk sat our wedding photograph.
I picked it up.
My face looked happy.
His looked convincing.
I placed it facedown.
Then I noticed something behind the frame.
A small memory card taped to the back.
I inserted it into my laptop.
There was one video file.
Date: two days before our wedding.
Daniel appeared on screen.
Younger.
Nervous.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If Claire ever sees this, it means I wasn’t brave enough to tell her before we married.”
I stopped breathing.
Daniel continued.
May you like
“My father is alive.”
And then he told the truth he had hidden for five years.
