Chapter 4 - The Photograph With Caleb’s Face
I demanded an explanation.
Grandpa asked me to sit down.
I refused.
“Tell me.”
Twenty-three years earlier, after my mother helped hide young Ethan Mercer, Grandpa had become involved.
Not because he wanted to.
Because Emily trusted him.
She needed someone who could drive Ethan across state lines without attracting attention.
Someone nobody connected to Rebecca Mercer.
That person was Grandpa.
He transported the boy to a foster family three states away.
Years later, that family adopted him.
His name officially became Caleb Rowan.
“Did he remember Mom?”
“Some of her.”
“He was four.”
“He remembered enough.”
Caleb grew up knowing a woman named Emily had helped save him.
But his adoptive parents were instructed never to give him her location.
When Caleb turned eighteen, he began searching.
He eventually found Grandpa.
“He came here?”
Grandpa nodded.
“Ten years ago.”
I was seventeen at the time.
I had been living in this house.
“Where was I?”
“At school.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did he want?”
“To meet Emily.”
Grandpa told him she was dead.
Then Caleb asked about me.
He knew Emily had a daughter.
“He asked my name?”
“Yes.”
“And you told him?”
“No.”
Grandpa said he ordered Caleb to stay away.
The Mercer family was still powerful.
Victor remained influential.
Old records had vanished.
Witnesses had changed their stories.
Grandpa believed reopening the past would place me in danger.
“So you threatened him?”
“I warned him.”
“What exactly did you say?”
Grandpa looked ashamed.
“I told him that if he cared about what your mother did for him, he would repay her by staying away from her daughter.”
The realization stung.
“You decided that for me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“But look where we are!”
Nora startled at my raised voice.
I immediately softened.
Grandpa looked crushed.
“I know.”
Years passed.
Caleb apparently stayed away.
Until last year.
He found me anyway.
I remembered our first date.
The way he had stared at me for several seconds before speaking.
I thought he was nervous.
Now I wondered whether he had been seeing my mother in my face.
“Did Caleb know I was Emily’s daughter when he met me?”
“I assume so.”
That betrayal cut deepest.
Our first kiss.
Our weekend trips.
His toothbrush in my bathroom.
Every ordinary memory suddenly had a question mark attached.
Had any of it been real?
My phone vibrated again.
Another message.
HE DIDN’T LEAVE BECAUSE OF THE BABY.
Then:
HE LEFT BECAUSE HE FOUND OUT WHAT YOUR GRANDFATHER HID.
I showed Grandpa.
“What does that mean?”
He stared at the screen.
“I don’t know.”
I almost laughed.
“Really? Because there seems to be a lot you don’t know right before another secret appears.”
“Grace—”
“No. I need air.”
I strapped Nora into her carrier and walked outside.
Grandpa followed.
“Don’t go far.”
“I’m standing in the driveway.”
I hated how frightened he looked.
I hated even more that part of me understood why.
The black sedan was gone.
But another car sat farther down the road.
Silver SUV.
I couldn’t see the driver.
“Is that one of Victor’s people?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer did nothing to reassure me.
Then Grandpa pointed toward my windshield.
Something had been tucked beneath the wiper.
A white envelope.
My name written on it.
I grabbed it.
“Wait,” Grandpa said.
But I opened it.
Inside was another photograph.
Recent.
Caleb.
He stood outside what looked like a train station.
Alive.
My heart slammed.
The photograph had a date printed in the corner.
Six days ago.
While I was sitting beside our newborn daughter in the hospital, Caleb had been alive somewhere less than a hundred miles away.
There was writing on the back.
HE WANTED TO COME TO YOU. ASK WHO STOPPED HIM.
I looked at Grandpa.
He looked genuinely horrified.
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
A second photograph slipped from the envelope.
This one was older.
My mother.
My father.
And another man standing beside them.
A younger Victor Mercer.
All four were smiling.
I turned to Grandpa.
“You said Victor was threatening Mom.”
“He was.”
“This doesn’t look like enemies.”
Grandpa took the photograph.
His face tightened.
“This was before she learned who he really was.”
“Who was he?”
Grandpa looked toward the road.
“Your mother trusted Victor before she feared him.”
“Why?”
“Because he was the federal investigator Rebecca Mercer called from the diner.”
I stared.
“What?”
“He wasn’t officially a Mercer then. Victor used his mother’s maiden name professionally. Emily didn’t know he was Rebecca’s brother-in-law.”
The truth struck me.
“The investigator who was supposed to protect them…”
“Was part of the family.”
Grandpa nodded.
My mother had unknowingly contacted the very person Rebecca was running from.
“That’s how he found them.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he take Caleb back?”
“Because Emily moved him first.”
Grandpa looked down at the old photograph.
“She beat Victor by hours.”
A car door slammed down the street.
The silver SUV.
A man stepped out.
Grandpa grabbed my arm.
“Inside.”
The man raised both hands.
“Grace!”
I froze.
He knew my name.
“I’m not with Victor.”
“Stay back!” Grandpa shouted.
The man stopped.
He looked to be in his late thirties.
He reached slowly inside his jacket.
Grandpa moved in front of me.
The stranger withdrew a phone.
Then turned the screen toward us.
A live video call.
For one second I saw only darkness.
Then a familiar face appeared.
Dark curls.
Stubble.
One blue eye.
One brown.
Caleb.
My legs nearly folded beneath me.
“Grace.”
His voice came through the phone.
Raw.
Desperate.
I hadn’t heard it in nine months.
Before I could speak, he said:
“Please don’t believe Victor.”
My throat closed.
“You disappeared.”
“I know.”
“We have a daughter.”
Caleb’s face broke.
“I know.”
“How?”
His eyes filled.
“Because I’ve been watching from far enough away to keep her alive.”
Then the screen went black.
And the stranger said something that changed the direction of everything.
May you like
“Caleb has forty-eight hours before Victor finds him.”
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