Chapter 5 - My Mother Was Supposed to Be Dead
For twenty-two years, my mother existed only in photographs.
Wedding portraits.
Christmas mornings.
Beach vacations in Maine.
A faded snapshot of her holding Bianca at age four while I stood beside them with missing front teeth.
In every image, Elena Mercer looked young because memory never allowed her to age.
The photograph Detective Chen placed in front of me destroyed that illusion.
The woman outside the gatehouse looked sixty-three.
That was exactly how old my mother would have been.
Her face was thinner.
Her shoulders stooped slightly.
Gray threaded through her dark hair.
But the small crescent-shaped scar near her left eyebrow was still there.
I remembered causing it.
I had been eight.
We were playing baseball in the yard.
I swung too early.
The plastic bat struck her face when she bent to pick up the ball.
She needed four stitches.
For years she joked that I had ruined her modeling career.
I touched the evidence photograph with one finger.
"That's her."
Bianca stared.
"You don't know that."
"I know my mother."
"So did I."
Her words carried twenty-two years of doubt.
Detective Chen watched us.
"The photograph was printed recently.
We're analyzing the paper and metadata from a digital copy found on Vale's phone."
"His phone had this?"
Chen nodded.
"The image was sent from an encrypted account."
"When?"
"Sunday."
Three days ago.
The same week Evelyn escaped.
Coincidence no longer existed in my vocabulary.
"Is she alive?"
"We don't know."
"Where was the photo taken?"
"Blackwood gatehouse."
"I know that.
When?"
"The date written on the back says three days ago.
We haven't verified it."
Bianca leaned forward.
"If Elena was here, someone accessed the property without security noticing."
Detective Chen looked at her.
"You mean your mother."
Bianca flinched at the correction.
After decades of grieving, even vocabulary had to be relearned.
Chen continued.
"Your estate has eighteen exterior cameras.
Four were offline Sunday morning between 4:12 and 4:47."
I laughed once.
"Of course they were."
"Who controls the system?"
"Security company.
My office can access it too."
"Your sister?"
"Yes."
Bianca's face hardened.
"I didn't disable anything."
"Someone did," Chen said.
My phone had still not been returned.
Chen's rang.
She stepped outside.
Bianca and I sat alone.
"You really don't know where Mom is?" I asked.
"No."
"Have you seen her since you were fourteen?"
"No."
"Messages?"
"No."
"Phone calls?"
"No."
"Then why did Marcus have a photograph?"
"I don't know."
"You knew he had people watching Blackwood."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Dad left things behind."
"The ledger."
"Not only that."
"What else?"
Bianca looked at the camera again.
"Records.
Copies.
Insurance."
"Against who?"
"Everyone."
She leaned closer.
"Thomas trusted no one.
Not Marcus.
Not his partners.
Not even me.
He kept proof because proof was leverage."
"Where?"
"I don't know all the locations."
"How convenient."
"You think I wanted this?"
"I think Evelyn lived beneath a floor because of decisions you made."
Pain crossed her face.
"I know."
"Then tell me everything."
She looked down at her hands.
"After Evelyn disappeared, Marcus came to me.
He knew she had found something.
He didn't know how much."
"And you told him she ran."
"Yes."
"You falsified evidence?"
Her silence answered.
"The car footage?"
"I drove it."
My stomach twisted.
"You drove Evelyn's car past the camera."
"Marcus ordered me to."
"Why obey him?"
"He said if we couldn't prove Evelyn had left the property, police would tear the house apart."
"Which would have found her."
"Yes."
"That was the point."
Bianca looked at me.
"If police found her, Marcus would know she was alive."
"And?"
"He had officers on his payroll."
I stared.
"You thought police would hand her back to him?"
"I didn't know who I could trust."
"You could have trusted me."
"No."
That single word cut deeper than everything else.
"Why not?"
"Because you would have done exactly what you're doing now.
You would have gone straight at him."
"Damn right."
"And you would've been dead within a week."
I stood.
"I spent three years believing the woman I loved abandoned me."
"I know."
"You watched me destroy myself."
"I know."
"You let me hate her."
Tears rolled down Bianca's face.
"I know."
"Stop saying that."
"What do you want me to say?"
"The truth!"
"I was trying to keep both of you alive!"
Her shout bounced off the walls.
The door opened immediately.
Detective Chen entered.
Bianca lowered her voice.
"Daniel, I had already lost Mom.
I wasn't going to lose you too."
"You lost me anyway."
She closed her eyes.
Chen placed another document on the table.
"We found something else in Marcus Vale's car."
A key.
Old brass.
Stamped with a simple letter E.
Bianca stared at it.
"No."
"What?" I asked.
"That's Mom's key."
"The east tunnel?"
She nodded.
Chen said, "If that's true, either Vale had it for years..."
"Or Mom gave it to him," I finished.
Bianca shook her head.
"She wouldn't."
"You don't know who she became."
The truth of my own words hurt.
Twenty-two years can turn a person into anyone.
Chen looked at Bianca.
"Can this key open the steel door?"
"I think so."
"We're about to test it."
"I want to be there," I said.
"No."
"It's my property."
"It's an active crime scene."
"My fiancée was imprisoned there."
"Exactly why you're not going underground while we clear it."
I started to argue.
Then her radio sounded.
Static.
A voice.
Chen listened.
Her expression changed.
"What?" I asked.
She lifted a hand.
"Repeat that."
The voice came through again, distorted but understandable.
"East door is open.
Officers entering."
Bianca stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
"Get them out."
Chen looked at her.
"What?"
"Get them out now."
"Why?"
Bianca went pale.
"Because my father trapped the east tunnel."
Chen grabbed her radio.
Then another voice exploded through the speaker.
"Officer down!
We need medical!"
I looked at Bianca.
May you like
"What kind of trap?"
She whispered, "The kind designed to make sure secrets stay buried."
