Chapter 7 - The Dead Man
Adrian Mercer had been my mother’s younger brother.
To the rest of the world, he was a brilliant but unstable investor who died when his car left a mountain road during a storm.
To me, he was Uncle Adrian.
He brought me puzzle boxes from foreign countries. He taught me how to identify constellations. He told stories in which the villains always wore beautiful clothes and spoke politely.
After the accident, no body was recovered.
The authorities found pieces of his car in a river two miles below the cliff.
My mother refused to discuss him afterward.
Six months later, she moved us across the country and changed my last name to Hart, my stepfather’s surname.
At nineteen, I legally adopted Hart.
I had not heard Adrian’s name in more than twenty years.
“How do you know he is alive?” I asked Marcus.
“I don’t know that he is.”
“You just identified him.”
“I recognized the description and the drawing. A man matching Adrian’s appearance appeared in an investigation eleven years ago.”
“What investigation?”
“I can’t discuss it over the phone.”
“This is my son.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Marcus lowered his voice.
“I spent three years investigating a private financial network that targeted inherited estates. Every case involved forged incapacity records, altered beneficiary documents, and shell companies. Every investigation collapsed because witnesses disappeared or withdrew.”
“Northstar?”
“One of many names.”
“Was Adrian involved?”
“We believed someone using his identity was involved.”
“Using his identity?”
“Adrian Mercer officially died twenty-four years ago. A dead identity is useful. It cannot easily be subpoenaed, arrested, or traced through ordinary records.”
“Daniel says the man calls himself Calder.”
“Calder was one of Adrian’s childhood middle names.”
My skin prickled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because we had no proof. And because our mother begged me not to.”
Our mother had died six years earlier.
In the final months of her life, she refused to see Marcus.
At the time, I believed their estrangement came from an argument about money.
Now I wondered whether it had begun with Adrian.
“Does Daniel know who Calder really is?” I asked.
“I doubt it.”
“What does he want from me?”
“The Mercer Trust.”
“The trust belonged to Grandmother.”
“Before that, it belonged to Adrian and our mother.”
I pressed a hand against the wall.
The Mercer Family Trust had always been described as my grandmother’s careful investment portfolio. After my mother’s death, it passed to me because Marcus had formally rejected his share.
I assumed he rejected it because he did not need the money.
“Why did you give up your half?” I asked.
“Because the trust was being watched.”
“By Adrian?”
“By whoever was using his identity.”
“Why did it pass to me?”
“I thought your public career would protect you. You had lawyers, publishers, managers. I believed moving the assets into your name would make them harder to steal.”
“You used me as a shield.”
“I made the wrong decision.”
I closed my eyes.
All morning, every person I trusted had transformed into a stranger.
Daniel had tried to steal my life.
Marcus had concealed the danger.
My dead uncle might have abducted my child.
“What is in the trust?” I asked. “Not money. What do they really want?”
“I don’t know.”
“You rejected millions of dollars without knowing why?”
“I knew the money was only part of it.”
The responding officer called my name from the hallway.
I turned away.
“What do I do?”
“Tell the police about Noah, but not about Adrian.”
“They already issued an alert.”
“Good. Stay in public.”
“The message ordered us to the lake house by six.”
“Do not go.”
“They will hurt him.”
“They need you alive and cooperative.”
“That is what Daniel said.”
“Daniel is the reason this happened.”
“And you’re the reason I never knew it could happen.”
Marcus absorbed the accusation without responding.
Finally, he said, “I’m sending someone to you.”
“Who?”
“An investigator I trust.”
“I don’t trust investigators.”
“You can trust her.”
“How will I recognize her?”
“She will ask whether you still hate licorice.”
Only three people knew that childhood joke.
Marcus, our mother, and Adrian.
“Why that phrase?”
“Because Adrian used to bring you licorice from Denmark, and you pretended to like it.”
A memory surfaced.
Adrian laughing in my grandmother’s kitchen while I secretly dropped black candies into a flowerpot.
For a moment, I smelled coffee and rain.
Then the memory changed.
Adrian leaning close to my mother.
My mother crying.
A locked door.
A suitcase beside the stairs.
I opened my eyes.
“Marcus, did Adrian hurt our mother?”
The line remained silent.
“Marcus?”
“Yes,” he said.
“How?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“You know enough.”
“He controlled her accounts. He forged her signature. He convinced people she was unstable.”
The same pattern.
The same language.
Incapatitated.
Paranoid.
Missing.
“What stopped him?”
“She found evidence and tried to leave.”
“What happened?”
“His car went over the cliff two days later.”
“You think she caused the accident.”
“I think she believed he was dead.”
“But he survived.”
“We don’t know.”
The officer approached.
“Mrs. Hart, we have a possible match on the van.”
I told Marcus I would call back.
The officer showed me a traffic camera image.
A gray minivan had passed through an intersection fifteen minutes after leaving the school. The license plate belonged to a vehicle reported stolen three days earlier.
The camera captured the driver.
A woman with blond hair.
Rebecca.
Daniel stared at the image.
“She took him,” he said.
“Where would she go?” the officer asked.
Daniel hesitated.
I knew he was thinking of Blackwood Lake.
Before he could answer, a woman entered the school office.
May you like
She was in her late thirties, with dark curls and a long green coat. She looked around until she found me.
Then she said, “Do you still hate licorice?”
