Chapter 8 - The Church With No Congregation
Briar Glen Church had been abandoned since a flood damaged its foundation. Ivy covered the stone walls. The bell tower leaned slightly east, and the cemetery behind it had not accepted a burial in thirty years.
At 11:55 a.m., I walked through the front doors carrying a leather case.
Inside were copies of Audrey's ledger and the maternity report. The originals were hidden elsewhere. A transmitter was sewn into the lining, but Mara had warned me Mercer might scan for it.
So I carried a second device no scanner would find: Thomas's old mechanical watch, modified by Daniel to record sound on a microscopic chip inside the casing.
The sanctuary smelled of wet wood.
Nora sat in the front pew with her wrists tied. Mercer stood beside the ruined altar. He wore plain clothes and held a pistol against her ribs.
"Stop there," he said.
I did.
"Open the case."
I placed it on the floor and lifted the lid.
He motioned me closer. "Slide it."
The case crossed the dusty aisle.
Mercer checked the documents. "Originals?"
"Yes."
He smiled. "You are a terrible liar."
Nora looked at me sharply.
Mercer removed a small lighter and set the ledger copy on fire. Flames curled through Audrey's handwriting. I did not move.
"Where is Lily?" I asked.
"Safe for the moment."
"Arthur is in custody."
"Arthur has been in custody before."
"Then why help him?"
Mercer's expression hardened. "Because Arthur understands leverage. My son needed a transplant. Insurance denied the experimental protocol. North Meridian paid. After that, favors became obligations."
"Did your son know what his life cost?"
Mercer struck Nora.
"Do not speak about him."
The confession entered the watch.
I kept my eyes on him. "Did you alter Audrey's evidence?"
"I redirected complaints. Lost reports. Delayed warrants. Pike handled the medicine. Catherine handled access. Arthur handled the woman."
"The woman was my daughter."
"To him she was a signature."
Nora began working one wrist against the broken edge of the pew. Mercer did not notice.
"Who took Audrey to the hospital?" I asked.
"Arthur called the ambulance."
"Who found her?"
Mercer smiled. "No one found her. She found herself."
I did not understand.
"Audrey was conscious after the dose," he said. "She tried to escape. She drove to the hospital garage and collapsed there. Arthur followed. He made sure he reached her before the cameras did."
My daughter had fought.
The knowledge hurt, but it also returned something Arthur had stolen from her story. She had not surrendered in bed. She had escaped the house, reached her car, driven seven miles while drugged, and nearly made it to safety.
"Why did the hospital report say she arrived by ambulance?"
"Because records are easy when the right people owe you."
Nora freed one hand.
Mercer saw the movement and raised the pistol.
I threw the empty case.
Nora dropped behind the pew as the gun fired. The bullet struck stone. I rushed Mercer before fear could slow me. At sixty-two, I was not stronger than he was. But grief had removed my instinct to protect myself.
We hit the floor.
He caught my throat with one hand and lifted the gun with the other.
A shot thundered.
Mercer jerked.
Daniel Cross stood in the side doorway, smoke rising from his pistol. Mercer collapsed beside me, wounded in the shoulder but alive.
Mara and officers entered from the rear. They had remained beyond the perimeter until Daniel sent the agreed signal.
Nora crawled toward me.
"Lily," I said. "Where is she?"
Nora's face crumpled. "I never told him."
"Then she is safe?"
"I don't know."
She explained that Lily had been placed with a trusted couple outside the city. Only Audrey knew their current address because she changed the location after suspecting Mercer.
Audrey was dead.
The address might have died with her.
Mara recovered Mercer's phone. It contained messages to Arthur, Catherine, and an encrypted contact called N.M. Counsel. It also contained photographs of Lily entering a blue farmhouse.
Daniel recognized the landscape from the ridge line.
"North road outside Fairhaven," he said.
We drove there with state police.
The farmhouse was empty.
Food remained warm on the stove. A chair lay overturned. The back door stood open.
On the kitchen table, someone had drawn a black heron in ash.
Samuel's family symbol.
Yet Samuel had been under police guard since the warehouse attack.
Beside the heron lay a note written in a child's hand.
I HEARD THEM SAY ASHFORD HOUSE.
May you like
I knew only one place Audrey might have called by that name.
The lake house where Thomas died.
