Chapter 15 - THE FILE THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE EXISTED
The door opened.
A man stood there.
Not Julian.
Not one of the attorneys.
Someone Emma had never seen before.
He looked at Garrison.
Then at Emma.
He smiled.
“You found it.”
Garrison stepped forward.
“Who sent you?”
The man laughed softly.
“You still ask the wrong questions.”
Emma gripped the photograph.
“What do you want?”
The man looked directly at her.
“Nothing.”
He pointed toward the file cabinet.
“You already have what I came for.”
Emma looked down.
She hadn't noticed the second envelope beneath the photograph.
Black.
Sealed.
Bearing the same emblem from the ballroom.
Garrison's expression hardened.
“Don't open it.”
Emma looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because I don't know what's inside.”
The stranger smiled.
“That is the first honest thing he's said to you.”
Garrison moved toward him.
The man stepped backward.
“Six years ago, Julian Mercer was told to destroy one file.”
Emma stared.
“What file?”
The stranger looked at her.
“Yours.”
Garrison's jaw tightened.
The stranger continued.
“But he didn't.”
Emma's heart raced.
“Why?”
The stranger smiled.
“Because he needed it.”
“For what?”
The man turned toward the exit.
“Ask him.”
He disappeared into the darkness.
Emma turned to Garrison.
“You knew.”
Garrison said nothing.
“You knew there was another file.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
He looked at the black envelope.
“I don't know.”
Emma stared at him.
“That isn't possible.”
Garrison's voice was quiet.
“Some files were never meant to be opened.”
Emma slowly reached toward it.
Her fingers touched the seal.
Then she stopped.
“What's inside?”
Garrison looked at her.
“I don't know.”
“Do you think it could explain everything?”
“No.”
Emma frowned.
“Why not?”
Garrison looked toward the empty doorway.
“Because I think it was created to make us believe it does.”
Emma's eyes narrowed.
“Then who created it?”
Garrison did not answer.
Outside, thunder rolled across the night.
Emma looked down at the sealed envelope.
For six years, she had believed Julian's lie was the beginning of her suffering.
Now she understood something far more frightening.
Julian's lie had only been the first layer.
The real story had begun before she ever entered that clinic.
And someone had been waiting for her to become pregnant before allowing the next piece to surface.
Emma looked at Garrison.
“I'm opening it.”
Garrison didn't stop her.
He simply said:
“Whatever you find inside, don't trust the name written on the first page.”
Emma broke the seal.
She pulled out the first document.
Her eyes moved slowly across the page.
Then her face went completely still.
At the top was a name.
A name she had never expected to see.
Garrison saw it.
His expression changed.
Emma looked up.
“Why is your name on this?”
Garrison said nothing.
She turned the page.
There was another name beneath his.
Julian's.
Then a third.
Partially blacked out.
Emma stared at it.
“Who is that?”
Garrison's face had gone pale.
For the first time since she had met him, the man who always seemed to know what to do looked genuinely afraid.
“Emma.”
“What?”
“Put the file down.”
She didn't.
“Tell me who that is.”
Garrison looked at the third name.
Then toward the darkness outside the basement.
Finally, he whispered:
“That's the person who started all of this.”
Emma's heartbeat thundered.
“Who?”
Garrison did not answer.
Because suddenly, somewhere upstairs, a phone began ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Garrison reached for his own phone.
It wasn't his.
The ringing continued.
Emma slowly looked at the black envelope.
The sound was coming from inside it.
She opened the final compartment.
A phone lay hidden beneath the documents.
Its screen displayed one incoming call.
UNKNOWN.
Emma stared.
Garrison whispered:
“Don't answer.”
The phone kept ringing.
Emma looked at him.
Then at the screen.
Then at the name that suddenly appeared beneath UNKNOWN.
MOTHER.
Her breath stopped.
Garrison's face went completely white.
Emma whispered:
“My mother died twelve years ago.”
The phone rang again.
And this time, someone answered from the other end.
“Emma?”
She froze.
The voice was unmistakable.
It was the voice she had heard in her childhood.
The voice of the woman she had buried twelve years earlier.
The line went silent.
Then the woman whispered:
“Whatever Blackwood tells you…”
A pause.
“Don't believe him.”
The call ended.
Emma slowly lowered the phone.
Garrison stared at her.
Neither spoke.
Then, from somewhere beyond the basement door, a man's voice echoed through the abandoned clinic.
“Too late.”
Emma turned.
The lights went out.
And in the darkness, someone whispered her name.
“Emma Mercer.”
The story of her marriage had never been the real mystery.
May you like
It was only the door.
And now that door was open.
