Chapter 8 - Mara’s Last Photograph
Matthew Mercer answered on the fourth call.
“Grant?”
His voice carried sleep and irritation.
It was nearly midnight in London.
“We need to talk.”
“Can it wait?”
“No.”
Silence.
“What happened?”
“Mara.”
The line went quiet.
Grant noticed immediately.
Not confusion.
Not surprise.
Silence.
“What about her?”
Grant looked through the glass doors of his study.
Nora sat with Sophie in the adjoining room.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Turn on video.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
Matthew sighed.
A moment later his face appeared.
He was three years younger than Grant.
Same dark hair.
Same jaw.
Same Mercer eyes.
Sophie’s phrase echoed.
He had your face.
Matthew studied him.
“You look terrible.”
“Where were you the night Mara disappeared?”
Matthew’s expression changed.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Five years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Grant, what is this?”
“Answer.”
Matthew rubbed his face.
“I was in New York.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
“That’s a lie.”
Matthew stared.
Grant continued.
“Sophie remembers you.”
Matthew went pale.
There.
Confirmation.
“You were at my house.”
“Grant—”
“You were here.”
“Yes.”
Grant’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“Why?”
“Mara called me.”
“Why?”
“She needed help.”
“With what?”
“I promised her.”
“She has been missing for five years!”
“I know.”
“Then your promise expired!”
Matthew closed his eyes.
“She suspected someone was stealing from the foundation.”
“I know.”
His eyes opened.
“You know?”
“Keep talking.”
“She found documents. She didn’t know whether she could trust anyone connected to Mercer Holdings.”
“Including me?”
“She trusted you personally. But she was afraid your phones and staff were compromised.”
Grant thought of the surveillance.
“She asked you to come here.”
“Yes.”
“Was Owen here?”
“I saw his car.”
“What happened?”
“I arrived through the side entrance. Mara gave me a flash drive.”
Grant’s heart sped up.
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
“How?”
“Someone attacked me in the garage.”
Grant stared.
“Who?”
“Voss.”
“Leon Voss?”
“Yes.”
Grant stood.
“You knew Voss attacked you and never told police?”
“He told me Mara and Sophie would die if I talked.”
“So you ran?”
Matthew’s face twisted.
“You think I’m proud?”
“I think my wife disappeared and my brother moved to Europe.”
“I was twenty-nine and terrified.”
“You were a Mercer. You had lawyers, security—”
“Security run by Voss.”
Grant stopped.
Matthew continued.
“I woke in the garage with a fractured rib and a gun beside my head. Voss told me they had eyes on Sophie every hour of every day. He showed me photographs from her bedroom.”
Grant thought of the cameras.
“He said if I contacted you, Sophie would be next.”
“So you disappeared.”
“I stayed in New York for two years.”
“You barely spoke to me.”
“Because every call felt dangerous.”
Grant wanted to hate him.
Part of him did.
But fear had isolated everyone differently.
Mara hid.
Matthew fled.
Grant buried himself in the search.
“And the flash drive?”
“I had hidden it before Voss found me.”
“Where?”
Matthew swallowed.
“In Mara’s car.”
Grant went still.
“The car that was found near Blackwater Bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Behind the lining of the passenger seat.”
Grant turned toward Daniel.
“Where is Mara’s car?”
Daniel checked.
“Police released it after eighteen months. Insurance salvage.”
“Find it.”
Matthew leaned toward the camera.
“Grant.”
“What?”
“There’s something else.”
“Of course there is.”
“Mara took a photograph that night.”
“Of what?”
“Two men in her study.”
“Owen?”
“One was Owen.”
“The other?”
“I couldn’t see the face.”
Grant’s breathing slowed.
“Where is the photograph?”
“She printed it.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t trust digital copies.”
Grant almost laughed.
Again, pure Mara.
“Where did she put it?”
“I don’t know.”
Mrs. Hargrove, standing behind Grant, suddenly spoke.
“I might.”
Everyone turned.
The house manager left the room.
She returned five minutes later carrying a children’s book.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses.
Sophie recognized it.
“Mommy used to read that.”
Mrs. Hargrove opened the back cover.
The cardboard lining had been cut and resealed.
Inside was a photograph.
Grant removed it.
Grainy.
Dark.
Taken through the half-open study door.
Owen stood near the desk.
Beside him was another man.
Only half his face was visible.
But it was enough.
Grant recognized him.
“No.”
Nora looked.
“Who?”
Grant couldn’t answer.
The man in the photograph was not Matthew.
Not Elias.
Not Voss.
It was Charles Mercer.
Grant’s father.
The man Grant had worshipped.
The man whose funeral he had attended seven years ago.
The photograph had been taken five years ago.
Two years after Charles Mercer had supposedly died.
Grant stared until the room blurred.
Matthew’s voice came through the phone.
“Grant?”
Grant finally whispered:
“Our father was alive.”
And if Charles Mercer had survived his own death, then Elias was not the first Mercer to disappear.
May you like
He was simply the second.
---
