Chapter 14 - Jason’s Last Bargain
Jason called Emma shortly after midnight.
The number was blocked, but the investigator had installed tracing equipment on her phone.
Emma answered while Caleb and two officers listened nearby.
“Where are you?” she asked.
Jason breathed into the phone.
“I need to see Noah.”
“You lost that right when you left us.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You made a plan.”
“My mother made the plan.”
“You carried it out.”
“I didn’t know the medicine would make you that sick.”
“You knew I was begging for help.”
Jason became silent.
Emma remembered his face at the nursery door. He had looked back before leaving.
He had seen her on the floor.
He had chosen the lodge camera over his wife.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I have proof.”
“Of what?”
“Who supplied the medicine. Who accessed the cabin. Who told Mom how to activate the trust.”
“Give it to the police.”
“I need protection.”
“From your mother?”
Jason laughed bitterly.
“My mother is already in custody. She was afraid too.”
“Of whom?”
“Meet me at Caroline’s house.”
The investigator shook his head.
Emma continued speaking.
“Send me the proof.”
“I can’t. It’s on a drive that only opens with Richard’s key.”
Caleb removed the silver key from his pocket.
Jason continued.
“Caleb has it, doesn’t he?”
Emma looked at him.
“How do you know Caleb found the key?”
“Because the person helping us watched him take it.”
“Who was helping you?”
“Come to the house.”
The call ended before the trace completed.
The investigators advised against going.
Caleb argued that Jason might destroy the evidence if they delayed. Eventually, the police arranged a controlled meeting. Emma remained in an unmarked vehicle across the street while Caleb entered Caroline’s empty townhouse wearing a concealed microphone.
Jason waited inside the study.
He looked thinner than he had two days earlier. His birthday jacket was stained with mud, and a healing cut crossed his cheek.
“Where’s Emma?” he asked.
“Safe.”
“Did she send you?”
“She doesn’t need to send me.”
Jason glanced toward the windows.
“They’re watching.”
“Yes.”
“Then we don’t have much time.”
He placed a black drive on Caroline’s desk.
Caleb inserted Richard’s key into a narrow slot along the side.
The device opened.
Hundreds of files appeared on Caroline’s computer.
Payment records.
Medical documents.
Surveillance images.
Copies of Emma’s mother’s reports.
And videos from the mountain cabin dating back more than twenty years.
One video showed Jason replacing Emma’s medicine under Valerie’s instruction.
Another showed Valerie receiving the replacement bottle from a person whose face remained hidden beneath a hood.
The final recording had been captured inside the lower garage on the morning Emma collapsed.
A person entered through the concealed tunnel three hours before Jason left.
The figure wore gloves and moved directly to the surveillance desk.
Jason paused the video.
“That person changed the dosage schedule,” he said. “Mom thought the plan would only make Emma appear disoriented. Whoever entered the garage wanted something worse.”
Emma heard the words through Caleb’s microphone.
Her hands tightened around the blanket covering Noah.
“Who is it?” Caleb asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did you run?”
“Because they sent me this.”
Jason opened a message on his phone.
It showed Emma sleeping in the hospital with Noah beside her.
The photograph had been taken from inside the protected room.
A sentence appeared beneath it.
Finish the Mercer transfer or the child disappears.
Caleb looked toward the townhouse door.
Police vehicles moved into position outside.
“You should have gone to them,” Caleb said.
“I didn’t know which officer they controlled.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“No. But you’ll believe this.”
Jason opened another file on the drive.
It contained a list of payments to Leonard Cross, the family attorney.
The most recent payment had been issued from an account belonging to Richard Mercer.
It was dated three days earlier.
Sirens sounded outside.
Jason raised both hands as officers entered the study.
He did not resist.
Before they took him away, he looked toward Caleb.
“I left her. I locked the door. I deserve whatever happens next.”
It was not forgiveness.
It was the first truthful thing he had said.
Jason was charged with multiple offenses related to the forged documents, unlawful confinement, interference with medical care, and the custody scheme. Leonard was detained after investigators discovered that he had filed the emergency order using false medical information.
Valerie remained in custody.
The court granted Emma temporary sole custody, control of her trust, and protection from every member of the Mercer family except Caleb.
Two weeks later, Emma returned to the mountain cabin with investigators.
She stood in the nursery while Noah slept safely against her chest.
The medicine table had been removed as evidence.
The phone remained on the floor where she had dropped it.
Caleb stepped into the doorway.
“It’s over,” he said.
Emma looked toward the basement.
May you like
“No. Jason’s part is over.”
From below them came the sound of a telephone ringing.
