Chapter 9 - The Dead Man Who Wasn’t
Daniel watched the video seven times.
Each time it became more impossible.
His father, Charles Mercer, had suffered a catastrophic stroke five years earlier.
For the final two years of his life he supposedly had almost no meaningful awareness.
Daniel visited monthly.
He held the old man’s hand.
Talked about Lily.
Read company reports aloud.
Charles died three years ago.
Yet the video showed him standing.
Talking.
Thinking.
Two years after the stroke.
“How?” Michael whispered.
Owen paused the video.
“We verify the date first.”
The metadata appeared authentic.
So did Rebecca’s presence.
Claire stared at Daniel.
“Maybe it was recorded earlier.”
“The timestamp could be altered.”
Owen nodded.
“We’ll test everything.”
Daniel barely heard them.
He remembered something.
During those visits, his father’s room had always been dim.
Doctors told Daniel light overstimulated him.
Staff changed frequently.
Daniel had never questioned it.
He called the neurological facility.
The number was disconnected.
Owen searched property records.
The clinic closed eight months after Charles died.
Its parent company was Aster Health Management.
Daniel laughed bitterly.
Aster again.
Claire covered her face.
Michael paced.
“Dad faked the stroke.”
“Or someone helped him appear incapacitated.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked at Rebecca’s frozen image.
“To disappear without disappearing.”
Nora whispered, “Then maybe he didn’t die either.”
Silence.
Daniel turned toward her.
No one laughed.
They exhumed nothing that night.
But Owen requested the death records.
Immediately something was wrong.
The attending physician had died six months later.
The private nurse could not be located.
The cremation had occurred within twenty-four hours.
Michael stared at the report.
“He was cremated?”
Claire looked confused.
“We had an urn.”
Daniel remembered the memorial.
He had never asked questions.
Their father explicitly requested cremation.
No viewing.
No open casket.
Nothing.
Daniel turned to Thomas.
“You handled the arrangements.”
Thomas looked horrified.
“I followed instructions.”
“Whose?”
“A document Charles had filed years earlier.”
“Through your office?”
“Yes.”
“Prepared by Evan?”
“No.”
Thomas swallowed.
“Prepared by me.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You never saw the body?”
“No.”
Neither had Daniel.
Neither had Claire.
Neither had Michael.
The possibility was absurd.
Yet so had been everything else tonight.
Owen searched Charles Mercer’s financial records.
Four international transfers had occurred after his legal death.
Small.
Deliberately small.
All routed through Aster.
Then one transfer only three months earlier.
A payment for property tax.
On a house in Maine.
Daniel looked at the address.
Blackwood Road.
The name made his skin crawl.
Owen arranged surveillance.
The house was occupied.
Utilities active.
Groceries delivered weekly.
Registered owner: C.M. Holdings.
Daniel didn’t wait.
“You’re not going alone,” Owen said.
“I’m not asking.”
“You don’t have authority to storm a private house.”
“I have authority to knock.”
They flew north at sunrise.
Daniel.
Owen.
Michael.
Claire refused to stay behind.
The property sat near a lake surrounded by pine forest.
A simple gray house.
No guards.
No gates.
Daniel walked to the front door.
He knocked.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then the door opened.
A woman in her seventies stood there.
Daniel recognized her after several seconds.
“Dr. Hale?”
Margaret Hale had been his mother’s physician.
She had vanished from their lives after the funeral.
Her face collapsed when she saw him.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Daniel felt Michael behind him.
“Is my father alive?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Is Charles Mercer alive?”
From inside the house came a man’s voice.
Old.
Weak.
But unmistakable.
“Let them in.”
Claire gasped.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Margaret stepped aside.
At the end of the living room sat a thin man in a wheelchair.
White hair.
Sunken cheeks.
A blanket over his knees.
Charles Mercer looked at his three children.
Alive.
Daniel couldn’t move.
His father spoke first.
“I hoped Rebecca would never send you here.”
Daniel’s hands curled into fists.
“She’s dead.”
Charles’s face broke.
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“You let us bury you.”
Charles lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You let Lily think her grandfather was dead.”
“I had no choice.”
Daniel walked toward him.
“You always had choices.”
Charles looked at his son.
“Not after your mother discovered what we did.”
Daniel’s voice became cold.
“What did you do?”
Charles looked toward the windows.
Then back at his children.
“We created Blackwood.”
Michael said, “We know.”
Charles shook his head.
“No.”
“You know the company.”
His eyes filled with shame.
“You don’t know what happened inside it.”
Daniel waited.
May you like
Charles whispered, “We tested on our own families.”
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