Chapter 10 - The Child Called Matthew
The exhumation order was approved despite the Mercer attorneys’ objections.
At dawn, forensic workers opened the grave of Baby Boy Mercer.
The small casket was intact.
Inside were the remains of a newborn child.
DNA testing required time, but preliminary examination revealed something immediately.
The baby had lived longer than nine hours.
Bone development and medical evidence suggested he survived at least three weeks.
The death certificate was false.
A hospital bracelet remained inside the casket.
The ink had faded, yet technicians recovered part of the name.
Matthew.
Lauren stared at the digital enhancement.
A.M.
Andrew Mercer.
Or Matthew.
A second name appeared in Thomas’s private notes, discovered through an indentation on the back of the trust schedule.
Matthew Shaw.
Evelyn had named her baby Matthew.
If Andrew was her child, his original initials were M.S., not A.M.
Unless Thomas wrote the beneficiary in reverse.
Or unless Andrew was not Evelyn’s baby at all.
Mara reconstructed the probable sequence.
Patricia gave birth to a sick infant.
Evelyn gave birth one day earlier at the same hospital.
Patricia’s child survived several weeks, not several hours.
At some point, the infants’ identities were manipulated.
One child was buried as Baby Mercer.
Another later appeared as Andrew Mercer.
But there might have been a third child.
A hospital admission log listed an unidentified male infant brought in by Charles Mercer’s driver two weeks after the births.
That infant vanished from the records the same day Patricia’s biological child was officially declared dead.
Three children.
One grave.
One adoption.
One missing identity.
Lauren’s phone received another message.
Do not let Andrew claim Matthew’s inheritance.
The message included a photograph.
Andrew sat tied to a chair in a concrete room.
A newspaper dated that morning lay across his knees.
Behind him stood Patricia.
Alive.
Her face was bruised, but she was not restrained.
Lauren showed Mara.
“Patricia is working with them.”
“Or pretending to.”
“She is standing behind her kidnapped son.”
“Andrew may not be her son.”
“She raised him.”
Mara did not argue.
A second photograph arrived.
This one showed Evelyn kneeling on the floor with blood on her blouse.
Graham Vale stood beside her.
Lauren recognized him from Thomas’s photographs: silver hair, narrow face, calm eyes.
The message beneath the photograph read:
Bring the original trust schedule to Blackstone Harbor at midnight.
No police.
No copies.
Lauren knew it was a trap.
She also knew the photographs might have been taken months earlier or digitally altered.
Mara analyzed the metadata.
The images had been captured that morning.
Blackstone Harbor had been closed after the financing freeze. Half-built towers stood beside the river, surrounded by cranes and concrete skeletons.
Hundreds of hiding places.
Lauren asked, “Can we use the schedule as bait?”
“We can use a replica.”
“They may test it.”
“Then we prepare for that.”
Rebecca objected immediately.
“You are not going.”
“They asked for me.”
“They tried to burn us alive.”
“They’re holding Andrew and Evelyn.”
“Andrew created this.”
“He did. But Evelyn didn’t.”
Rebecca moved closer.
“What about Sophia and Chloe?”
“They are why I have to end this.”
“No. They are why you stay alive.”
Lauren looked at her sister.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think part of you still believes you have to save Andrew.”
Lauren considered the accusation.
Did she?
She no longer loved the man who watched their children cry.
But she remembered the man he had been before power became his only language.
Maybe that man had never existed.
Or perhaps he had existed and chosen cowardice until nothing remained of him.
“I’m not saving my husband,” Lauren said. “I’m protecting evidence that could save every family North Vale targeted.”
Rebecca looked unconvinced.
Mara placed a hand on the table.
“Lauren will not go unprotected. We’ll control the site.”
“You don’t control North Vale,” Rebecca replied.
“No. But they believe they control us.”
At nine that evening, Andrew regained consciousness in a concrete room beneath Blackstone Harbor.
His wrists were bound.
Evelyn sat across from him, one side of her face swollen.
Patricia stood near the door.
“Mother,” Andrew whispered.
Patricia looked at him with disgust.
“You were never supposed to let Lauren see the loan.”
“You forged the insurance policies.”
“I protected the foundation.”
“You insured my daughters.”
“They were leverage.”
Andrew pulled against the restraints.
“They are children.”
“They are beneficiaries.”
Evelyn raised her head.
“You still call yourself his mother?”
Patricia slapped her.
Andrew stared at Patricia as if seeing her for the first time.
“Is Evelyn my mother?”
Patricia smiled.
“No.”
“Then who is?”
Graham Vale entered the room.
He carried a small wooden box.
“The woman bringing us the trust schedule,” he said.
Andrew stopped breathing.
“Lauren?”
Graham opened the box.
Inside lay a hospital bracelet marked Matthew Mercer.
“No,” Andrew whispered.
Graham smiled.
“Not Lauren.”
May you like
He looked toward the ceiling, where footsteps echoed through the unfinished structure.
“Her mother.”
