Chapter 1 - The Wife Nobody Asked About)
Four months before Walter Mercer's retirement dinner, Rachel Mercer stood in the kitchen at six thirty in the morning making pancakes nobody had asked her to make.
Daniel was reading messages on his phone.
Brooke sat at the breakfast island scrolling through videos.
Rachel placed a plate in front of her.
"Blueberries are inside these."
Brooke didn't look up.
"I said I wasn't hungry."
"You said that yesterday and then called me from school asking me to bring lunch."
"I didn't ask you to make pancakes."
Rachel paused.
"Okay."
Daniel glanced up.
"Don't start."
Rachel looked at him.
"I didn't."
"You have that tone."
"What tone?"
"The one where you pretend you're not annoyed."
Rachel almost laughed.
After seven years of marriage, Daniel had developed a remarkable ability to accuse her of emotions before she had time to feel them.
He returned to his phone.
"I'm meeting Dad tonight about the retirement dinner."
Rachel poured coffee.
"Do you need me there?"
Daniel hesitated.
That hesitation answered the question.
"Family planning thing," he said.
Rachel stared at him.
"I'm your wife."
"That's not what I meant."
Brooke smiled without looking up.
Daniel continued.
"Dad wants the dinner traditional. Old clients. Family. People he worked with."
Rachel placed the coffee down.
"And?"
"And you've been..."
He searched for a word.
"Unavailable."
Rachel's fingers tightened around the mug.
For eighteen months, she had disappeared most Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Daniel believed she attended yoga classes.
Brooke believed she met a group of unemployed women for coffee.
Elaine had once openly suggested Rachel might be having an affair.
None of them knew about the hospital.
None knew about Thomas Whitaker's children.
And none knew that after helping save those children, Thomas had opened a door Rachel had spent nineteen years trying to forget.
A door marked with a single name.
Emily Vale.
Rachel touched the small silver pendant beneath her cardigan.
Inside was a photograph.
Two teenage girls.
One was Rachel.
The other had been officially dead for nineteen years.
"Rachel?"
Daniel's voice pulled her back.
"What?"
"I said Dad wants you to make your potato casserole for the dinner."
Of course.
Not needed for planning.
Needed for cooking.
Rachel smiled faintly.
"Sure."
Daniel stood.
He kissed Brooke on the forehead.
He passed Rachel without touching her.
At the garage door, he stopped.
"Oh, and Dad asked about your job situation."
Rachel looked at him.
"My job situation?"
"He worries."
"I haven't asked him for money."
"No, but people notice things."
"What things?"
Daniel exhaled.
"Rachel, you're thirty-six. You used to work."
"I still work."
Daniel laughed.
"Helping at school fundraisers isn't work."
Rachel stared at him.
He had no idea.
Before marrying Daniel, Rachel had worked as an emergency medical coordinator.
Before that, she'd trained as a paramedic.
Before that...
She had survived Mercer House.
A name nobody in the Mercer family had ever used in front of her.
Because they supposedly didn't know it existed.
Daniel opened the door.
"I'm not trying to insult you."
"No," Rachel said. "You usually don't have to try."
He looked back.
"See? That tone."
Then he left.
Brooke finally looked up.
"Dad's right, you know."
Rachel began clearing dishes.
"About what?"
"You don't really do anything."
Rachel stopped.
Brooke shrugged.
"Mom works."
Rachel's expression softened slightly.
Brooke's biological mother, Cassandra, lived in Columbus and worked as a commercial attorney.
Rachel had never competed with her.
Brooke had decided to create the competition herself.
"Your mother works very hard."
"And you don't."
Rachel nodded.
"Finish breakfast."
"I'm sixteen."
"Then you're old enough to understand when someone ends a conversation."
Brooke rolled her eyes.
Rachel's phone vibrated.
One message.
THOMAS WHITAKER:
We found another ledger.
Rachel stared at the screen.
A second message arrived.
THOMAS:
Your name is in this one.
Her chest tightened.
A third followed.
THOMAS:
So is Walter Mercer's.
Rachel slowly sat down.
Brooke noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
But it wasn't nothing.
May you like
For nineteen years, Rachel had believed Walter Mercer had entered her life by coincidence.
Four months later, she would learn just how wrong she had been.
