Chapter 9 - THE MEN AT THE DOOR
Someone knocked.
Three slow hits.
Margaret turned off the kitchen light.
“Upstairs. Both of you.”
Ethan didn’t move.
“No.”
“Ethan—”
“I’m done running away from people who know more about my life than I do.”
The knock came again.
A man’s voice.
“Mrs. Mercer.”
Claire whispered, “I know that voice.”
Ethan looked at her.
She looked sick.
“That’s my father’s driver.”
Everything inside Ethan went still.
He opened the door.
Claire grabbed him.
“Wait.”
Too late.
Thomas Monroe stood on the porch.
Claire’s father.
Behind him were two men in dark coats.
Thomas looked exhausted.
“Claire.”
She stepped around Ethan.
“Did you take Nora?”
Thomas’s face changed.
“No.”
“Did you call Dr. Pierce?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Richard called me first.”
Ethan stepped forward.
“What did he want?”
“To know whether Pierce still had records.”
“Why would you care?”
Thomas looked at him.
“Because Hale Industries and Monroe Capital signed preliminary merger agreements based on disclosures that now appear to contain fraud.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“So this is about money.”
“No. It became about keeping you alive when Nora disappeared tonight.”
Ethan stared.
“What?”
Thomas stepped inside.
“The men who took Nora work for Richard’s former attorney.”
“Former?”
“Charles Vane.”
Margaret made a sound behind them.
“Oh, no.”
Everyone turned.
Ethan said, “You know him?”
Margaret sat down slowly.
“Charles created the custody papers.”
Thomas nodded.
“And if Pierce’s documents are real, he also falsified medical testimony and arranged the fraudulent death report.”
Claire folded her arms.
“So where is Nora?”
Thomas looked at Ethan.
“We traced the sedan to an old private treatment center outside Burlington.”
Margaret whispered, “Ashcroft.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What is Ashcroft?”
Her eyes filled with horror.
“The hospital where they locked your mother away.”
Thirty minutes later they were on the road.
Thomas insisted his two men come.
Ethan didn’t trust him.
But he trusted the address.
Ashcroft Behavioral Center had closed eleven years earlier.
Its windows were boarded.
Rain began as they reached the property.
Ethan saw the building and suddenly couldn’t breathe.
A memory hit him.
Not the hospital after the crash.
Another place.
A hallway.
A locked door.
His five-year-old fist pounding against glass.
A woman screaming his name.
Ethan slammed on the brakes.
Claire grabbed the dashboard.
“What?”
“I’ve been here.”
Margaret stared at him from the back seat.
“What did you say?”
“I’ve been here.”
“No.”
“I remember this building.”
“That’s impossible.”
He turned toward her.
“Why?”
Margaret’s face collapsed.
“Because Richard told Nora you died before they brought her here.”
Ethan looked back at the dark building.
Lightning flashed.
For one second, he saw a second-floor window.
A woman stood behind it.
Then vanished.
“Mom.”
Ethan ran toward the building.
Behind him, Margaret screamed:
May you like
“ETHAN, THAT’S NOT NORA!”
---
