Chapter 11 - The Second Black Case)
David turned slowly.
“You knew?”
Eleanor looked defeated.
“Richard made two.”
Richard reacted on screen.
“I made three.”
Everyone went silent.
David stared at him.
“Of course you did.”
Richard almost looked apologetic.
“One contained documents.”
“The Miami case.”
“Yes.”
“One contained the hard drive?”
“Yes.”
“And the third?”
Richard did not answer.
David’s stomach tightened.
“What is in the third case?”
Richard looked toward Maya and Liam.
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“All the children who survived.”
David thought of the basement wall.
Samuel.
Rebecca.
Michael.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You made it.”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere I believed no one would search.”
Eleanor looked horrified.
“Richard.”
He turned toward the screen.
She whispered, “You didn’t.”
Richard’s expression confirmed everything.
David looked between them.
“Where?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“The family cemetery.”
David stared.
“You hid evidence in a grave?”
“Not evidence,” Richard said.
“A case.”
“Whose grave?”
Richard’s voice became quiet.
“Mine.”
The cemetery was outside Albany.
The grave marked Richard Carter had been visited every year by Eleanor.
David and Chloe stopped going after college.
Richard had never been buried there.
The coffin contained no body.
Only symbolic belongings.
Or so David had been told.
A court order allowed excavation before dawn.
David stood beneath floodlights as workers raised the coffin.
Eleanor refused to come.
Chloe did.
When the lid opened, both siblings stepped closer.
Inside was a suit.
Shoes.
A watch.
Old photographs.
And beneath a false bottom:
A black metal case.
The third case.
David almost laughed.
Seventeen years beneath a gravestone bearing a living man’s name.
Hall opened it carefully.
Inside were paper files.
No digital storage.
Richard had been deliberate.
Seven folders.
Daniel Mercer.
Claire Mercer.
Samuel Hale.
Rebecca Knox.
Michael Vale.
Anna Price.
Thomas Reed.
David stared at one name.
Michael Vale.
Mark’s real surname.
“Marcus Vale.”
Hall saw it too.
Chloe’s face paled.
“Mark?”
They opened Michael’s file.
A childhood photograph showed a thin boy with dark hair.
Different from adult Mark, but recognizably him.
DOB indicated he was one year older than David.
Subject 05.
Cognitive adaptability exceptional.
Resistance to identity replacement high.
Repeated escape attempts.
Protective attachment to Subject 02, Claire Mercer.
Chloe covered her mouth.
David looked at her.
“You knew him.”
“I don’t remember.”
Richard spoke by phone.
“Michael protected Claire.”
Chloe began crying.
Hall continued reading.
At age eleven, Michael escaped.
Recaptured.
At thirteen, transferred.
After that, no records.
David understood.
“Mark didn’t marry Chloe randomly.”
Richard said, “No.”
“He remembered her.”
“Yes.”
Chloe sat down.
“He never told me.”
“Maybe he thought the memories would hurt you.”
David’s tone sharpened.
“Another man protecting us with lies.”
Richard accepted it.
Then Hall opened another file.
Samuel Hale.
Status unknown.
Rebecca Knox.
Status unknown.
Anna Price.
Deceased.
Thomas Reed.
Transferred to Program Continuation.
David frowned.
“What is Program Continuation?”
No one answered.
Richard finally spoke.
“I never knew.”
Hall opened David’s file.
Inside were medical records.
Behavioral notes.
Family information.
Then one page marked in red.
MATERNAL ACCESS AUTHORIZED.
Evelyn Mercer’s signature appeared.
David felt sick.
“My biological mother authorized this?”
Richard’s silence was enough.
Eleanor had said Jonathan tried to expose the program.
But Evelyn had apparently approved David’s participation.
David read further.
Subject Daniel demonstrates strongest identity reconstruction potential in cohort.
Recommended for Phase Two.
Below:
Mother requests continued access.
Father objects.
David’s hands trembled.
“Jonathan tried to save me from Evelyn.”
Richard replied quietly, “Yes.”
The narrative shifted again.
Evelyn was not a surviving victim.
She had been part of it.
Perhaps worse.
David turned pages until he found a recent addition.
A photograph taped inside the folder.
Not from childhood.
Current.
Maya leaving an obstetric clinic six months earlier.
Pregnant.
Someone had written:
SECOND GENERATION CONFIRMED.
David’s blood turned cold.
Another photograph.
Ultrasound image.
Liam.
A medical identifier had been copied beneath it.
“How did they get this?”
Hall’s face hardened.
“Hospital records.”
Richard swore.
David flipped the page.
Final notation.
DELIVERY WINDOW: EXPECTED FEBRUARY.
But Liam had arrived early.
Eleven days early.
David suddenly understood.
“They expected me to be in Germany when he was born.”
Hall looked at him.
“But he came early.”
“Yes.”
David thought rapidly.
“They engineered the business trip.”
“Yes.”
“But not the premature birth.”
“No.”
David looked at Maya through the live video.
“You ruined their schedule.”
Maya gave a grim smile.
“I’ve always been bad with schedules.”
Then Liam cried.
Richard lifted him gently.
For one surreal second, three generations filled the screen.
David.
The man who raised him.
His newborn son.
Then Hall’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
He looked at David.
“Frankfurt police found Evelyn Mercer.”
David stood.
“Alive?”
Hall nodded.
“She walked into the American consulate twenty minutes ago.”
“Why?”
Hall’s expression became grim.
“She says she wants protection.”
“From who?”
Hall repeated the answer.
“Daniel Mercer.”
David stared.
“That’s me.”
May you like
Hall shook his head.
“She says no.”
