Chapter 11 - The House in Michigan
The facility no longer existed.
It had been called Hawthorne Recovery Center.
Private.
Expensive.
Remote.
It closed four years earlier after bankruptcy.
Reed traced William’s payments there.
Patient names were protected.
But a former nurse agreed to speak.
Her name was Helen Avery.
She remembered William immediately.
“He wasn’t called William.”
“What was he called?” Claire asked.
“Patient Forty-Seven.”
Claire sat across from Helen in a quiet police interview room.
“What was wrong with him?”
“Nothing when he arrived.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
Helen continued.
“He was confused because of medication, but physically he was strong.”
“Who brought him?”
“Two men.”
“Daniel Mercer?”
Helen studied a photograph.
“Yes.”
Claire swallowed.
“And this one?”
Peter.
Helen nodded.
“Him too.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Her husband and uncle had delivered her living father to a private facility after staging his death.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“I thought it was legal.”
“He was being held under a guardianship order.”
“Signed by whom?”
Helen hesitated.
“His daughter.”
Claire opened her eyes.
“No.”
Helen pushed a photocopy across the table.
Claire Mercer.
Her signature.
Forged.
Again.
“What happened to him?”
“He tried to escape.”
“When?”
“Nineteen months after he arrived.”
“The payments stopped then.”
Helen nodded.
“Because he escaped.”
Claire stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“My father escaped?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he injured?”
“No.”
“Did anyone find him?”
Helen looked uncomfortable.
“Someone came looking.”
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Claire stared at her.
“Did he find him?”
“I don’t know.”
Helen reached into her bag.
“But your father left something.”
She produced a sealed envelope.
“My father gave you this?”
“He told me if anyone named Claire ever came asking, I should give it to her.”
Claire’s hands shook.
She opened it.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
William’s handwriting.
Claire recognized every curve.
Sweetheart,
If you are reading this, then I failed to get home.
Do not trust Peter.
Do not trust Daniel.
And whatever they tell you, do not sell your shares.
The company is not what you think it is.
Your mother discovered it first.
Claire stopped.
Her mother had died when Claire was fourteen.
A car accident.
William continued:
Peter believes the secret belongs to him because our father created it.
He is wrong.
The proof is beneath the first place Mercer-Bell ever owned.
You have been there.
You just don’t remember.
Claire read the last sentence three times.
Then she looked at Reed.
“The first place Mercer-Bell owned was demolished twenty years ago.”
“Where?”
Claire whispered:
“South Chicago.”
Reed reached for his phone.
Claire looked back at the letter.
May you like
There was one final line she had not read aloud.
If Daniel is still beside you when you find this, run.
