Chapter 4 - Room Twelve
We drove to Cincinnati in Victor’s pickup because he insisted my truck might be monitored.
Dad came too.
Nobody spoke for the first twenty miles.
I sat in the passenger seat repeatedly calling Emily.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Victor finally reached across and lowered my phone.
“You’re draining the battery.”
“My wife could be in danger.”
“And if whoever found her checks recent calls, calling twenty times won’t help.”
I wanted to punch him.
Instead I stared through the windshield.
Rain began falling outside Columbus and followed us south.
At 3:52 a.m. we reached the Riverside Motor Lodge.
The place looked exactly like somewhere a frightened person would choose if they wanted to disappear.
One level.
Peeling paint.
Buzzing vacancy sign.
A dozen rooms facing a parking lot.
Room twelve’s door stood slightly open.
I ran.
Victor shouted behind me.
“Daniel!”
I pushed through.
“Emily!”
Empty.
The bed was unmade.
A lamp had been knocked over.
A paper cup sat beside the sink.
Her suitcase remained near the wall.
My heart nearly stopped.
“Emily!”
Bathroom.
Empty.
Victor checked behind the shower curtain.
Dad searched the parking lot.
No blood.
No sign of a struggle beyond the overturned lamp.
Then I saw writing on the mirror.
Not written in marker.
Emily had traced words through the condensation left by the bathroom shower.
When the mirror dried, they became almost invisible.
I breathed onto the glass.
Letters slowly appeared.
NOT TAKEN.
LEFT THROUGH BACK.
FOLLOW THE BLUE.
I stared.
“She left willingly.”
Victor studied the message.
“The blue what?”
Dad entered.
“There’s a blue dumpster behind the motel.”
We ran outside.
Behind it, taped beneath the lid, was a hotel key card.
Not for Riverside.
The card read:
MASON HOTEL.
Victor searched his phone.
“There’s one downtown.”
We drove there.
Morning traffic had begun by the time we arrived.
Unlike Riverside, the Mason Hotel was modern and crowded with business travelers.
At the front desk, I showed Emily’s photograph.
“Have you seen her?”
The clerk looked uncomfortable.
“I can’t provide guest information.”
“She’s my wife.”
“I’m sorry.”
Victor quietly placed a folded hundred-dollar bill on the counter.
The clerk looked at it.
Then me.
Then pushed the money back.
“Room 614.”
I stared.
“Thank you.”
We took the elevator.
Room 614 was locked.
I knocked.
“Emily?”
Nothing.
“Emily, it’s Dan.”
Silence.
I knocked harder.
“Please.”
The door opened two inches.
One brown eye appeared.
Then the door flew open.
Emily stood there.
For one second neither of us moved.
She looked thinner.
Pale.
Exhausted.
Then she crashed into me.
I wrapped my arms around her.
Everything I had wanted to say disappeared.
Anger.
Questions.
Accusations.
I just held her.
“You idiot,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“You absolute idiot.”
“I know.”
“You scared me to death.”
“I know.”
She was crying now.
“So did you.”
Eventually I pulled back.
“Never do that again.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t get to disappear to protect me.”
“I know.”
Victor entered behind us.
Emily immediately stiffened.
“You brought him?”
“He brought me.”
“Dan—”
“Enough secrets.”
My voice surprised even me.
“No more deciding what I can handle. No more hiding letters in appliances. No more disappearing.”
Emily looked down.
“You’re right.”
“Start talking.”
We sat inside.
Emily explained the motel.
After calling me, she noticed a black sedan parked near her room.
She recognized it from photographs she had collected while investigating Charles Mercer.
She left through the bathroom window, crossed behind the building, and took a taxi downtown.
“They didn’t take me.”
“Who are they?”
“Private investigators.”
“Hired by Charles?”
“Some of them.”
“Some?”
Emily looked toward Victor.
“He isn’t working alone anymore.”
Victor nodded.
“That makes sense.”
“To who?”
Emily removed papers from her bag.
She had discovered Charles Mercer was attempting to liquidate several offshore accounts.
Millions of dollars.
More importantly, he was destroying old records.
“He knows someone is closing in.”
“Who?”
“A federal task force.”
I blinked.
“You contacted federal investigators?”
“Not directly.”
Emily pointed to Victor.
“He introduced me to a retired prosecutor who connected us to an investigator named Rachel Morrison.”
Victor looked surprised.
“You spoke with Morrison?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“She told me the task force needs original evidence.”
“The ledger,” Dad said.
Emily nodded.
“Without it, much of what we have is circumstantial.”
I remembered the hidden metal box from childhood.
“The cabin.”
Emily looked at me.
“You remembered?”
“Some of it.”
She grabbed my hand.
“Dan, your mother hid something there.”
“How do you know?”
Emily opened her laptop.
“My protected file.”
She typed my mother’s birthday.
A video appeared.
Old.
Grainy.
Digitized from a VHS tape.
My mother sat at a kitchen table.
She looked directly into the camera.
I had not heard her voice in nearly twenty years.
“If Daniel ever sees this…”
I stopped breathing.
“…then Charles found us, or Richard’s daughter found the truth.”
Emily squeezed my hand.
My mother continued.
“Daniel, you were never supposed to inherit this burden.”
She explained that Richard gave her the ledger in the hospital.
She hid it in a red metal box.
Then she said:
“I chose somewhere Charles would never search because only my little boy knew the place.”
The screen showed a photograph.
Stone bridge.
Creek.
Trees.
Recognition slammed into me.
“I know where it is.”
Victor leaned forward.
“Where?”
“Not the cabin.”
I remembered my mother laughing while rain fell.
Seven-year-old me carrying a little red box.
Mud on my shoes.
A broken stone bridge.
“There was an abandoned railroad line behind the property.”
Dad nodded.
“Yes.”
“A tunnel.”
Victor stood.
“When do we leave?”
“Now.”
Emily grabbed my arm.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because Charles knows about the cabin.”
“How?”
“He sent me this yesterday.”
She showed us a photograph.
Taken from a distance.
The abandoned cabin.
And standing beside the stone bridge was a man wearing a dark coat.
Charles Mercer.
May you like
My uncle.
He was already there.
