Marcus could not move.
The voice on the phone had already disappeared, but its final sentence remained in the room as sharply as if the caller were still speaking. Your father made the same mistake. Natalie was watching him, waiting for an explanation. Marcus looked at the empty hospital bed and felt the past he had spent twenty years avoiding begin to move beneath his feet.
“My father,” he finally said, “was supposed to have died in a warehouse fire.”
Natalie frowned. “You never told me that.”
“There wasn't much to tell. I was twelve. They said faulty wiring started it. His body was identified from dental records.”
“Was he investigating something?”
Marcus looked at the old photograph of Daniel Mercer.
“I don't remember.”
That answer frightened him.
He remembered his father's hands. The smell of tobacco on his coat. The way he used to whistle while fixing things around the house. He remembered the night of the fire, too, but only in pieces. Red light through the bedroom curtains. His mother crying in the kitchen. A police officer kneeling in front of him and telling him his father wasn't coming home.
But there was something else.
A blue door.
He had seen it before.
Not in a dream.
Not in a photograph.
In a place from his childhood.
Marcus closed his eyes.
The memory came back in fragments. His father driving at night. Rain against the windshield. A younger Marcus asleep in the back seat. His father's voice saying, “If anyone asks, you were never here.”
He opened his eyes.
Natalie was still watching him.
“I've been there,” he said.
“Where?”
“The storage property.”
She stared.
“The blue door?”
He nodded.
“I was there as a child.”
They returned to the old property before dawn.
The building looked smaller than Marcus remembered, though he wasn't sure whether he truly remembered it or whether the photograph had created the illusion. The blue metal door was still hanging crookedly from its hinges. Rainwater ran down the concrete walls.
Marcus stood outside for several seconds.
Then he stepped inside.
The room smelled of damp wood and rust.
He swept his flashlight across the floor.
There were the same marks on the wall where the photographs had been removed.
But beneath the chair, something caught the beam.
A narrow wooden box.
Marcus crouched.
The lid was secured with a rusted latch.
Natalie looked at him.
“Open it.”
Inside were papers wrapped in oilcloth.
Old documents.
Photographs.
A cassette tape.
And a child's drawing.
Marcus lifted the drawing.
His breath stopped.
Three figures stood beneath a yellow sun.
A tall man.
A woman.
A little boy.
In the corner was a blue rectangle representing a door.
He knew the drawing.
“I made this.”
Natalie looked at him.
“You're sure?”
“I remember the crayons.”
He turned the paper over.
On the back, in his father's handwriting, were four words.
For Marcus, when he is old enough.
Natalie did not touch him.
Marcus opened the first document.
It was a police report concerning the Mercer house fire.
The official conclusion said accidental.
A second document told a different story.
Daniel's father had been involved in a property scheme that included forged deeds and stolen identities. Andrew had discovered it while working as an accountant for one of the companies involved.
Marcus read faster.
Andrew had not been a criminal.
He had been a witness.
Daniel's father had threatened him.
Then Daniel had secretly warned Andrew.
The warning had come too late to prevent the fire.
Marcus looked at Natalie.
“Daniel wasn't the person Andrew feared.”
“Then who was?”
Marcus turned another page.
A name appeared repeatedly.
Richard Vale.
The same name was connected to the warehouse fire that had supposedly killed Marcus's father.
Marcus's hands went cold.
“Vale,” he whispered.
Natalie leaned closer.
“Who is he?”
“I don't know.”
But he did know the name.
His father had once mentioned it at the dinner table.
Marcus had been twelve.
His mother had immediately told him to go upstairs.
At the time, he had assumed it was an ordinary argument.
Now he understood why the room had gone silent.
They searched the remaining documents.
Andrew had been collecting evidence for years.
There were copies of bank transfers.
Property records.
Photographs of people meeting in parking lots.
Names of shell companies.
And a handwritten list of children.
Ashley was one of them.
Marcus stared at the page.
“Why would Ashley be listed?”
Natalie pointed to a second column.
Beside Ashley's name was a date.
Her birth date.
Below it was another name.
Her mother.
Then Daniel's.
Marcus understood something that made his stomach tighten.
Ashley had not been hidden because of Andrew.
She had been hidden because of what she represented.
Her mother had been one of the witnesses.
And Ashley was the only surviving person who could connect the witnesses to the people who had disappeared.
A sound came from outside.
Both detectives froze.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Then silence.
Marcus reached for his weapon.
Natalie moved toward the doorway.
A shadow passed across the blue door.
Someone was standing outside.
Marcus shouted, “Police!”
The door opened.
A man stepped inside with both hands raised.
He was older than Marcus expected.
His hair was gray at the temples.
A scar ran along the side of his neck.
Daniel Mercer.
Natalie raised her weapon.
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“You finally remembered.”
Marcus stared at him.
“You took Ashley.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“You won't believe me.”
“Try.”
Daniel looked toward the documents.
“Your father trusted me.”
Marcus's jaw tightened.
“My father died.”
Daniel's expression changed.
“No.”
The word landed quietly.
“Your father disappeared.”
Marcus stared.
“That's not possible.”
“I watched the fire.”
“Then you know he died.”
“I watched them put another man's body inside that building.”
Silence filled the room.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Your father knew they were coming. He sent you away that night because he thought you were the only thing they couldn't use against him.”
Marcus couldn't breathe properly.
“Who is they?”
Daniel looked toward the photographs.
“Richard Vale and the people who worked for him.”
Natalie lowered her weapon slightly.
“And Andrew?”
Daniel's eyes hardened.
“Andrew found out Vale had started looking for Ashley.”
“Where is Andrew?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then he said the one thing Marcus had been afraid to hear.
“He's been hiding her.”
“Where?”
“Not hiding her.”
Daniel looked directly at Marcus.
“Protecting her.”
A noise came from outside.
This time it was an engine.
Daniel turned toward the door.
“They found us.”
Marcus looked at the documents.
“What do you mean?”
Daniel grabbed the box.
“Your father made one mistake. Andrew made the same one.”
“What?”
“They trusted the wrong person.”
Daniel ran toward the rear exit.
Marcus followed.
But before they reached it, headlights swept across the windows.
Several vehicles stopped outside.
Natalie whispered, “We're surrounded.”
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“Now you understand why your father disappeared.”
The lights went dark.
And somewhere outside the building, a man called Marcus's name.
Click Here to continue read next: PART6: The Man We Thought Was Hunting Ashley Revealed the One Person My Father Had Trusted Enough to Leave Behind
The Promise My Father Made Before Walking Out the Door Became the One Thing Nobody Could Explain Years Later
Part 5 of 8
