Chapter 8 - What Their Mother Knew
Daniel had been seventeen when his mother died.
Official cause: heart failure.
He remembered hospital corridors.
His father refusing to cry.
Claire holding Daniel’s hand.
Michael too young to understand.
Nobody had questioned anything.
Until now.
Claire sat slowly.
“That was twenty-three years ago.”
Evan nodded.
“Aster existed then.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It changed names.”
Daniel stared at him.
“What was it called?”
“Blackwood Therapeutics.”
Michael cursed.
Their father had been an early investor.
Daniel remembered the name from childhood.
Blackwood had collapsed after a financial scandal.
Or so he had been told.
Evan continued.
“Your mother served on its ethics board.”
Daniel’s pulse quickened.
“She discovered unauthorized testing.”
“On patients?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who ran it?”
Evan shook his head.
“Your father was involved financially.”
Claire stood.
“Stop.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Our father wasn’t a murderer.”
Evan flinched.
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You’re implying it.”
Daniel looked at Claire.
“Let him talk.”
“He’s a criminal.”
“So was whoever forged my signature.”
Claire turned toward Daniel.
“You seriously think Dad was part of this?”
“I think our mother found something.”
“That proves nothing.”
Michael spoke quietly.
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“Why are you defending him so hard?”
Her expression changed.
Daniel noticed.
“What?”
Claire didn’t answer.
Daniel stepped closer.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“Claire.”
She closed her eyes.
“When Dad had his stroke, he called me first.”
Daniel remembered.
Five years earlier.
Their father had collapsed at the family estate.
Claire arrived before paramedics.
“What did he say?”
“He was confused.”
“What did he say?”
Claire looked at Daniel.
“He kept saying, ‘I should have stopped Blackwood.’”
Silence.
Michael whispered, “You never told us.”
“I thought it was meaningless.”
Daniel didn’t believe that.
“You remembered it for five years.”
Claire looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“He said Mom knew.”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“Knew what?”
“He couldn’t finish.”
Daniel turned away.
Rebecca had followed the same trail their mother had found decades earlier.
Two women.
Two deaths.
One family company.
Daniel looked at Owen.
“We need everything on Blackwood Therapeutics.”
Owen nodded.
Nora spoke from the doorway.
“There may be something else.”
Everyone turned.
She had been quiet for nearly an hour.
Now she looked pale.
“Rebecca asked me to hide a box.”
Daniel approached her.
“What box?”
“She said if anything happened to her, I should never give it to anyone unless Lily was in danger.”
Daniel stared.
“And Lily is in danger.”
Nora nodded.
“Where is it?”
“In a storage locker.”
Owen drove with them.
The locker was twenty minutes away.
Nora opened unit 318.
Inside were ordinary furniture pieces.
Old chairs.
Boxes.
A crib.
At the back, beneath a blanket, sat a small metal safe.
The brass key did not open it.
Nora entered a code.
Lily’s birthday.
Inside were documents.
A phone.
Three memory cards.
And a sealed envelope with Daniel’s name.
His hands shook as he opened it.
Rebecca’s handwriting covered six pages.
Daniel read silently.
She explained everything she knew.
The fake research contractors.
The foundation transfers.
Aster.
Blackwood.
Her belief that someone close to Daniel was using the Mercer empire to hide crimes committed decades earlier.
Then he reached the final page.
Daniel, if you are reading this, please understand one thing.
I did not trust your father.
But by the end, I became certain he was trying to stop what he helped create.
Daniel stopped.
He continued.
The person I fear is someone he protected.
Someone he loved enough to destroy evidence for.
Daniel looked at Claire and Michael.
His siblings.
Rebecca had feared someone their father loved.
Daniel finished the sentence.
And I think that person is still inside our family.
No name.
Of course.
Michael whispered, “He loved all of us.”
Claire looked wounded.
Daniel folded the letter.
Owen examined the phone.
“Battery’s dead.”
They returned to the estate and connected it.
When it powered on, there was only one video.
Rebecca appeared on screen.
Alive.
Daniel stopped breathing.
She sat in the greenhouse.
The recording date was the night before her death.
Rebecca looked directly at the camera.
“If something happens to me, this is why.”
Daniel’s vision blurred.
Rebecca continued.
“I found the original Blackwood participant list.”
She lifted a folder.
“I know who they tested.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“And I know why the Mercer family has been paying one particular person for more than twenty years.”
Rebecca glanced behind her.
She looked frightened.
“I thought the payments were hush money.”
She swallowed.
“I was wrong.”
Footsteps sounded somewhere off camera.
Rebecca turned.
A man entered the greenhouse.
The camera captured only his back.
Rebecca stood.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The man replied.
“I could say the same to you.”
Daniel froze.
He recognized the voice.
So did Claire.
So did Michael.
Claire whispered, “No.”
On the screen, Rebecca stepped backward.
The man turned slightly.
Enough for the camera to capture his face.
Their father.
Alive one day before Rebecca’s death.
But their father had supposedly been unconscious in a private neurological facility for nearly a year.
Daniel stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
Rebecca asked the same question.
“You’re supposed to be in a coma.”
Their father looked toward the camera.
Then directly into it.
And said four words.
“Daniel can never know.”
May you like
The video ended.
---
