Chapter 16 - ETHAN’S SECOND SECRET
Mercer told Ethan to walk three blocks.
A gray sedan waited beside an empty playground.
Ethan saw no driver at first.
Then the rear door opened.
“Get in.”
Mercer was thinner than Ethan remembered from the funeral home photos.
His eyes looked exhausted.
He held no visible weapon.
Ethan knew that meant nothing.
“Where’s Mrs. Ellis?”
“Safe.”
“Show me.”
Mercer turned his phone.
A live video showed Mrs. Ellis sitting inside her kitchen.
She was alone.
Confused.
But unharmed.
“You lied.”
“I needed you to cooperate.”
Ethan backed away.
Mercer opened his jacket enough to reveal the grip of a handgun.
“Get in.”
Ethan did.
What Mercer did not know was that Ethan had disobeyed only half of Claire’s instructions.
He had left the house.
But he had not left without protection.
Two days earlier, Detective Ortiz had given Megan a small emergency tracker for Ethan’s backpack.
Ethan had moved it into his shoe.
The device transmitted automatically if he pressed the side twice.
He pressed it before entering the sedan.
Mercer drove north.
“You’re different from Richard,” Ethan said.
Mercer glanced at him.
“How would you know?”
“He pretends to care.”
Mercer almost smiled.
“And I don’t?”
“No.”
“That might make me more honest.”
Ethan looked out the window.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“There isn’t one.”
Mercer’s eyes shifted.
“There is.”
“My mom doesn’t have it.”
“She does.”
“No.”
Mercer hit the steering wheel.
“Richard said she kept handwritten copies.”
Ethan understood something.
Mercer did not know as much as he pretended.
Richard had kept information from him.
That was useful.
“My mom burned them.”
Mercer looked sharply at him.
“You’re lying.”
“Maybe.”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
Thirty miles away, Detective Ortiz watched a blinking tracker move north on a digital map.
Claire sat beside her.
“That’s Ethan.”
Ortiz nodded.
“We have him.”
Police units began closing in without sirens.
Mercer turned onto an old two-lane road.
Ethan recognized it.
The fishing cabin.
The photograph found in Mercer’s apartment had been taken there.
The sedan stopped beside a weathered lake house surrounded by trees.
Mercer led Ethan inside.
On the table were passports.
Cash.
A laptop.
And three sealed evidence boxes.
Ethan’s pulse quickened.
Mercer had kept everything.
“Call your mother,” Mercer said.
“No.”
Mercer placed the handgun on the table.
“You’re going to tell her exactly where you are.”
Ethan looked at the weapon.
Then at the window.
He could hear no police.
No cars.
Nothing.
Mercer slid a phone toward him.
Ethan picked it up.
Before dialing, he noticed one name written across the nearest evidence box.
RICHARD HALE.
Underneath it was another name.
One Ethan had never seen before.
May you like
DANIEL PARKER.
His dead father.
