Chapter 1 - Ten Days Left
Doctors gave my six-year-old twins ten days to live.
I had spent most of my adult life believing there was no problem money couldn't at least make smaller.
Money bought better doctors.
It bought private hospital wings.
It bought helicopters when traffic was too slow, specialists when waiting lists were too long, and access to experimental programs ordinary families spent years trying to reach.
Money bought twelve-foot walls around my Chicago estate.
It bought armored vehicles.
It bought men who had spent their lives learning how to prevent bad people from getting close to me.
And once, when the world was simpler, I had even believed money could buy time.
Then Dr. Franklin Yates stood beside me outside a glass medical suite and quietly destroyed that illusion.
Behind the glass, my children slept.
Jonah lay on his side, his small body nearly disappearing beneath the white blanket.
His twin sister, Blythe, slept facing him in the opposite bed.
For most of their lives they had refused to sleep more than ten feet apart.
Even at six, they moved through the world like two halves of the same thought.
If Jonah laughed, Blythe usually laughed harder.
If Blythe cried, Jonah appeared beside her before anyone else knew something was wrong.
Now neither of them laughed much.
Leukemia had taken care of that.
It had taken their hair first.
Then their appetites.
Then their energy.
Then the color from their faces.
And now, according to Franklin, it was preparing to take everything else.
“We’ve exhausted what their bodies can tolerate,” he said.
I stared through the glass.
“Try again.”
His expression didn’t change.
“I wish it were that simple.”
“I didn’t ask whether it was simple.”
“Lawson.”
I finally looked at him.
Dr. Yates had known me for fifteen years. He had treated men who worked for me, stitched me up once after a car accident, and attended Genevieve’s funeral.
Very few people used my first name when I was angry.
He was one of them.
“How long?” I asked.
Franklin hesitated.
That hesitation frightened me more than any answer could have.
“How long?”
“Maybe ten days.”
Something inside my chest went silent.
Not broke.
Not shattered.
Silent.
I looked back through the glass.
Ten days.
There were men in Chicago who believed my name could end careers with a phone call.
There were businessmen who waited months for five minutes in my office.
There were politicians who returned my calls before they returned their wives’.
None of that mattered behind that glass.
I walked into the room.
Jonah stirred when I sat beside him.
His eyelids opened slowly.
“Dad?”
“I’m here.”
His hand moved across the blanket until I took it.
“You look mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“You have your mad face.”
Even now, he could do that.
Make me feel something dangerously close to laughter.
“I’ll work on it.”
His lips moved into the smallest smile.
Across the room, Blythe opened her eyes.
“Daddy?”
I moved between their beds.
She reached out.
I took her hand too.
For a few seconds, I simply stood there holding both of them.
Blythe looked at her brother.
Then she looked at me.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“If I go first… can Jonah come with me?”
I forgot how to breathe.
Jonah turned toward her.
“Don’t say that.”
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said.
My voice sounded firm.
It had convinced entire rooms full of grown men.
It didn’t convince my daughter.
Her eyes moved toward the empty chair beside the window.
The chair Genevieve used to sit in.
“Mommy went.”
Two words.
That was all it took.
Genevieve.
My wife.
Their mother.
Dead for two years.
According to the report, her car had lost control on a wet highway north of the city and hit a concrete divider.
Instant death.
That was what I had been told.
I had identified her belongings afterward.
Her wedding ring.
Her watch.
Her handbag.
I had been too broken to question anything else.
Blythe squeezed my fingers.
“Do you think Mommy remembers us?”
“Every second.”
“Can she see us?”
“I think so.”
“Then tell her we’re trying.”
I turned my face away before she could see what happened to it.
That afternoon I returned to my office because I had learned a long time ago that sitting still with fear only gave it more room.
Reports covered my desk.
Financial statements.
Security briefings.
A federal compliance notice.
Two acquisition proposals.
Normally I could move through a stack like that in an hour.
That day, I read the same paragraph seven times.
At three o’clock, my security chief entered.
Prescott Hale had worked for me for nearly a decade.
Former military intelligence.
Forty-three years old.
Never rattled.
Never dramatic.
Never wasted words.
He stood in front of my desk and waited.
“What?”
“She’s still outside.”
I looked up.
“Who?”
“The woman asking about the caregiver position.”
“We aren’t hiring.”
“I told her.”
“Then why is she still there?”
“She refuses to leave.”
“Remove her.”
Prescott didn’t move.
That got my attention.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes hardened slightly.
“She says she knows Jonah and Blythe are dying.”
I stood immediately.
There were perhaps twelve people in the world who knew exactly how serious the twins’ condition had become.
Every one of them had signed agreements.
Most were inside my estate.
“How?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“How long has she been outside?”
“Almost three hours.”
“And you waited until now?”
“I assumed she was unstable. Then she said something else.”
“What?”
“She asked whether Genevieve’s children still slept facing each other.”
My body went cold.
That was not public knowledge.
It wasn’t medical information.
It wasn’t something a journalist could find.
Genevieve used to joke that the twins had probably faced each other in the womb.
“Bring her in.”
Prescott touched his earpiece.
Less than five minutes later, two guards entered with a woman between them.
She was thin.
Maybe twenty-nine or thirty.
Her coat was worn at the cuffs.
Her shoes were soaked from the October rain.
Her hair had escaped from a loose knot and clung damply to her cheeks.
She looked around my office once, but there was no greed in her expression.
No awe.
Only fear.
“Name?”
“Elena Ward.”
“You asked about a caregiver position.”
“Yes.”
“We didn’t advertise one.”
“I know.”
“How do you know about my children?”
She swallowed.
“I need to see them.”
“No.”
“Mr. Mercer—”
“You walked onto my property knowing private information about two dying children. You are going to explain exactly how you got it.”
Her eyes shifted toward Prescott.
Then the two guards.
Then back to me.
“I can’t explain all of it until I know they’re really here.”
My patience disappeared.
“You have ten seconds.”
Instead of answering, Elena reached beneath her sweater.
Both guards reacted immediately.
One moved toward her.
The other reached beneath his jacket.
“Stop,” I ordered.
Everyone froze.
Elena slowly lifted both hands.
“I’m taking out a necklace.”
She reached beneath the fabric and pulled out a thin silver chain.
A small blue stone hung from it.
For one moment, my brain refused to understand what my eyes were seeing.
Then the room seemed to tilt.
I walked around the desk.
“Where did you get that?”
Elena’s expression changed.
Tears filled her eyes.
I reached toward the pendant without touching it.
The stone was sapphire.
Oval.
Small scratch on the silver backing.
I knew that scratch.
Genevieve had made it while opening a champagne bottle during our second anniversary trip.
I had given her that necklace one year earlier.
She wore it almost every day.
She had been buried wearing it.
At least that was what I had believed.
“Where did you get it?” I repeated.
Elena whispered, “Your wife gave it to me.”
The guards looked at each other.
Prescott went completely still.
“That is impossible.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“She died two years ago.”
“I know.”
“She died instantly.”
Elena’s tears slipped down her cheeks.
“No, Mr. Mercer.”
My entire body tightened.
“What did you say?”
“She didn’t.”
Silence.
Not the silence of an empty room.
The silence of a room where everyone suddenly understood the next sentence might change everything.
“When did she give it to you?” I asked.
“Three weeks before she died.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Elena removed a folded piece of paper from inside her coat.
Prescott stepped forward.
“Let me see that first.”
“No.”
I held out my hand.
She placed it in my palm.
It was an old medical report.
The paper had been folded and unfolded so often the creases were nearly worn through.
I opened it.
At first, I saw only numbers.
Genetic markers.
Laboratory abbreviations.
Then two names caught my attention.
JONAH MERCER.
BLYTHE MERCER.
I looked at the date.
Then looked again.
Seven years earlier.
One year before my children had been born.
I stared at Elena.
“What is this?”
Her voice shook.
“The reason your children’s treatment isn’t working.”
My fingers tightened around the paper.
“That is impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
“How can a medical report exist for two children who hadn’t been born?”
“Because that report isn’t describing the disease they developed.”
“What is it describing?”
Elena glanced toward the hallway.
Fear moved across her face.
Not nervousness.
Not discomfort.
Fear.
“The condition someone knew they would inherit.”
Prescott stepped closer.
“Someone?”
Elena looked directly at me.
“Your wife made me promise something.”
“What?”
“That if anything happened to her, I would find Jonah and Blythe.”
“Why wait two years?”
Her voice cracked.
“Because I was hiding.”
“From whom?”
She stared at me for a long moment.
Then said the sentence that turned ten terrible days into something far darker.
May you like
“From the person who killed Genevieve.”
And before I could answer, every light in the west wing of my estate went out.
