Chapter 6 - The Man With His Father's First Name)
Thomas Mercer lived in a small house outside Stamford.
At least that was what public records claimed.
Daniel arrived after dark.
Marcus insisted on coming.
Eleanor stayed at the mansion with private security Daniel personally trusted.
The house looked ordinary.
One car.
One porch light.
Curtains closed.
Daniel knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
A voice came from inside.
"Who is it?"
"Daniel Whitmore."
Silence.
Then locks opened.
The man who appeared was not the stranger from Ashcroft House.
He was older.
Thin.
Nearly bald.
He looked at Daniel for several seconds.
"I wondered when you would come."
Daniel's pulse quickened.
"You know me?"
"I knew your father."
Marcus said, "May we come in?"
Thomas Mercer looked toward the street.
Then stepped aside.
The living room was filled with books and boxes.
No photographs.
No decorations.
Nothing personal.
Daniel remained standing.
"Was your brother Samuel at Ashcroft House today?"
Thomas's expression changed.
"Samuel is dead."
"I saw someone who looked like him."
"Then you saw someone else."
"My mother said Samuel worked for my father."
"He did."
"And later delivered a threat from Charles Blackwell."
Thomas looked at Daniel.
"Your mother misunderstood."
Daniel's voice hardened.
"Explain it."
"Samuel wasn't threatening her."
"He showed her a photograph of me."
"To warn her."
Daniel froze.
"Warn her about what?"
"That Blackwell had people watching you."
Marcus leaned forward.
"So Samuel was still helping Thomas Whitmore."
"Until it killed him."
Daniel stared at the older man.
"How did Samuel die?"
"Officially?"
"Truthfully."
Thomas Mercer walked to a cabinet.
He removed a bottle of whiskey.
His hands shook slightly as he poured.
"He was found in a motel outside Baltimore. Police called it an overdose."
"You don't believe that."
"My brother hated drugs."
Daniel sat.
"Tell me about my father."
Thomas drank.
"Your father discovered that Charles Blackwell was using real estate transactions to hide money from illegal political funds."
"Whose funds?"
"People you don't want to know."
"I do."
Thomas shook his head.
"That's exactly what your father said."
Marcus asked, "Did Thomas Whitmore fake his death?"
Thomas Mercer looked at him.
Then at Daniel.
"I don't know."
Daniel stood.
"You're lying."
"I know he planned to disappear for seventy two hours."
"Why?"
"To move evidence."
"Where?"
"Different places."
"A bank box?"
Thomas's eyes sharpened.
Daniel saw recognition.
"Yes."
"My mother received a notice. Someone accessed that box six months ago."
Thomas looked genuinely surprised.
"Six months?"
"Who has access?"
"No one should."
"Did Dad?"
Thomas did not answer.
Daniel stepped closer.
"Is my father alive?"
"I don't know."
"You said he planned to disappear."
"He never contacted me afterward."
"Did he contact Samuel?"
"I don't know."
"Did Samuel think he was alive?"
Thomas looked toward the window.
"Until the day Samuel died, he believed someone was still sending instructions."
"From my father?"
"Maybe."
"What instructions?"
"Protect Eleanor. Protect you. Keep Blackwell away from Ashcroft."
Marcus and Daniel exchanged a look.
"Then why did Blackwell eventually buy Ashcroft through a shell company?"
"Because Samuel was dead."
Daniel's stomach tightened.
"Who took over protecting us?"
Thomas looked at him.
"No one."
Daniel thought of years passing without incident.
His rise in business.
Charles Blackwell entering his life again only after Whitmore Holdings had become powerful enough to matter.
"Why did Charles approach my company?"
Thomas answered immediately.
"Because you rebuilt what your father lost."
Daniel frowned.
"Money?"
"Leverage."
"What leverage?"
Thomas stared at him.
"The hotels."
Daniel laughed in disbelief.
"What do hotels have to do with twenty year old political money?"
"Your father hid records inside assets."
"What does that mean?"
"Every property he bought with Charles had a corresponding number. Those numbers were not just accounting codes. They were references."
"To what?"
"Documents. Accounts. Names."
Marcus whispered, "A distributed archive."
Thomas nodded.
"If one file was discovered, it revealed nothing. You needed the complete property list to reconstruct the map."
Daniel understood slowly.
"When I rebuilt Whitmore Holdings, I reacquired old Whitmore properties."
"Exactly."
Daniel felt cold.
"How many?"
Thomas smiled sadly.
"Enough."
Marcus asked, "Does Blackwell know?"
"He knows Daniel has unknowingly assembled parts of the archive."
Daniel stared at him.
"The merger gives Charles access to all corporate records."
"Yes."
"So Vanessa was never marrying me for the company."
Thomas looked almost sympathetic.
"She may have liked you."
Daniel's face hardened.
"But?"
"But liking you and using you are not mutually exclusive."
Daniel walked toward the fireplace.
Everything he had believed about the previous two years shifted.
The merger.
The engagement.
Vanessa's interest in old company history.
Her questions about properties Daniel assumed were meaningless.
Her insistence on digitizing decades of archives before the wedding.
It had all been preparation.
Marcus asked, "Where is the master list?"
Thomas Mercer finished his whiskey.
"Your father kept it with the ledger."
"The missing envelope?"
"No."
Daniel turned.
"Then where?"
"Samuel told me Thomas created three copies."
"Where are they?"
"One disappeared with him."
"And the second?"
"Samuel had it."
"Where is it now?"
Thomas looked toward a closed bedroom door.
"Burned."
Daniel's frustration rose.
"The third?"
Thomas looked directly at him.
"Your mother had it."
Daniel froze.
"No. She had part of a ledger."
"She had more."
"She would have told me."
Thomas said nothing.
Daniel's phone rang.
Eleanor.
He answered immediately.
"Mom?"
Her voice was shaking.
"Daniel, where are you?"
"With Thomas Mercer."
Silence.
Then she whispered, "Leave."
"What?"
"Leave that house now."
Daniel looked at Thomas.
"Why?"
Eleanor began crying.
"Because Thomas Mercer is not Samuel's brother."
Daniel stared at the man across from him.
His mother continued.
"Samuel Mercer never had a brother."
Daniel's blood went cold.
Thomas Mercer slowly put down his glass.
Daniel whispered into the phone.
"Then who is he?"
Eleanor answered.
May you like
"I don't know."
At the same moment, every light in the house went out.
