Chapter 7 - Two Mothers“Down!”
The police wanted statements.
Firefighters were still fighting the warehouse blaze.
Victor had vanished.
And my father—who legally had been declared dead—was becoming an administrative nightmare for everyone involved.
By 3:00 a.m., we were sitting inside a conference room at the Mercer Industrial headquarters.
Celeste had arrived after leaving Emma and Noah with her sister.
The moment she saw my father, she slapped him.
Dad accepted that too.
“Fair,” he said.
Then she hugged him.
Human emotions rarely arrive one at a time.
Martin sat at the conference table with an ice pack against his eyebrow.
“I met Ella in 1987,” he began.
Dad stared at him.
“How?”
“She came to the cemetery.”
“Why?”
“To choose a grave.”
I frowned.
“For herself?”
“No.”
Martin looked at Dad.
“For Eleanor.”
My biological grandmother.
“Eleanor died five years after she disappeared. Cancer.”
Dad’s expression softened.
“I never knew.”
“She wanted no funeral. Ella arranged a private burial under another name.”
Martin had been a young groundskeeper then.
Ella came alone.
Over the next several weeks, she returned.
Eventually, she told him pieces of the story.
“She was scared of Victor,” Martin said.
“She should have come to me,” Dad replied.
“She was scared for you too.”
Dad looked away.
Martin continued.
“She believed Victor was watching every contact you made. So she decided the safest way to protect Daniel was to disappear completely.”
“Then why did she stay in touch with you?”
“She needed one person who knew where she was.”
“And you picked a cemetery worker?” I asked.
Martin smiled sadly.
“People tell gravediggers secrets they would never tell priests.”
He reached into his jacket.
A folded piece of paper.
He handed it to me.
An address in Vermont.
“Is she there?”
“She was six months ago.”
My hands trembled.
Celeste squeezed my shoulder.
Dad stood.
“We’re going.”
Martin shook his head.
“No.”
Dad’s face hardened.
“What?”
“You are exactly why she stayed away.”
“That was forty years ago.”
“And you faked your funeral three days ago.”
Dad had no answer.
Martin looked at me.
“She wanted Daniel to decide whether to find her.”
“Did she know about the key?”
“She designed half the plan.”
That stunned Dad.
“What?”
Martin looked almost amused.
“You always thought you were running everything, Raymond.”
For the first time that night, I saw something like embarrassment on my father’s face.
Martin said, “Ella knew Victor would eventually move against you. She believed the best chance of exposing him was to let him think all the old secrets were buried.”
“Literally,” Celeste said.
“Exactly.”
I stared at the Vermont address.
“Why now?”
“Because six months ago Ella contacted me and said Victor had found her.”
My father went pale.
“What happened?”
“She moved again. But she left that address because she believed Daniel might eventually come.”
“Then she isn’t there.”
“She said if Daniel showed up, the current owner would know how to reach her.”
I folded the paper.
“I’m going.”
Dad said, “I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Daniel—”
“You heard Martin.”
“I’m your father.”
“You’re also apparently the reason she spent my whole life hiding.”
His face tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither was my funeral this morning.”
He absorbed that.
“Fine.”
Celeste spoke.
“I’m going with Daniel.”
“No.”
She stared at me.
I sighed.
“Okay.”
Dad almost smiled.
“Good luck winning that argument.”
“Do not start acting like my father again.”
The smile disappeared.
By sunrise, Celeste and I were driving north.
The children stayed with her sister under police protection.
Victor’s whereabouts were unknown.
I watched the New Jersey landscape give way to New York, then Vermont.
Each mile brought me closer to a woman I had spent my whole life believing did not exist.
I imagined anger.
Excuses.
Maybe indifference.
What I wasn’t prepared for was a farm.
The address led us to a small property outside Manchester, surrounded by bare maple trees and hills dusted with early snow.
A red barn stood beside a white farmhouse.
An elderly woman opened the door.
“Daniel.”
Not a question.
My heart jumped.
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
She looked at Celeste.
“You must be his wife.”
Celeste nodded.
The woman smiled.
“Come inside. You both look frozen.”
Her name was Ruth Bennett.
She served coffee without asking.
“Ella worked here for almost eight years.”
“Worked?”
“She’s a nurse.”
That surprised me.
“She changed names several times. For the last decade she’s been Elizabeth Carter.”
“Where is she?”
Ruth studied me.
“You have Raymond’s eyes.”
The sentence hit strangely.
“So he is my biological father?”
She looked confused.
“Of course.”
Relief and anger arrived together.
“Where is my mother?”
Ruth reached beneath the table.
She pulled out a phone.
“She asked me to make one call if you ever came.”
She dialed.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Ruth frowned.
“That’s strange.”
“When did you last speak?”
“Yesterday morning.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did she say?”
“That something had happened to Raymond.”
“She knew about the funeral?”
“She said she saw it online.”
Ruth tried again.
Still nothing.
Then she stood.
“Wait.”
She crossed to a cabinet and retrieved an envelope.
“This arrived two days ago. She told me not to open it unless you came.”
My name was written on the front.
Inside was a letter.
Daniel,
If you are reading this, Raymond’s plan failed in some way—or succeeded more dramatically than he intended. That would be very much like your father.
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
There is so much I want to explain, but if Victor has moved against Raymond, then we are out of time.
The truth about Mercer Industrial is bigger than a forged ownership transfer. Victor has been rebuilding the criminal network your grandfather created. Raymond discovered it. I have evidence.
Do not trust anyone who tells you Victor is acting alone.
I stopped.
Celeste leaned closer.
The next line made my stomach drop.
Most importantly: Margaret is in danger.
I read on.
She spent thirty-eight years protecting you, often at greater risk than you know. Whatever lies she told, she told because I asked her to.
My eyes burned.
If Victor knows Raymond survived, he will use Margaret to draw him out.
I pulled out my phone.
Seven missed calls.
All from Dad.
I called immediately.
He answered on the first ring.
“Daniel.”
“What happened?”
His voice was strained.
“Margaret’s gone.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“An hour ago. She left the police station with a detective.”
“What detective?”
“That’s the problem.”
A pause.
“He wasn’t a detective.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Dad continued.
“There was a note in the parking lot.”
“What did it say?”
“He wants the ledger.”
“The red ledger burned?”
“No.”
Dad hesitated.
“The one in the warehouse was a decoy.”
Of course it was.
“Where’s the real one?”
Dad exhaled.
“Ella has it.”
Behind me, Ruth gasped.
I turned.
Her face had gone white.
“What?”
She pointed toward the window.
A black SUV had stopped at the end of the farm driveway.
Two men stepped out.
Ruth whispered:
“They were here yesterday.”
I grabbed Celeste’s hand.
“Back door.”
Then a third person climbed from the SUV.
A woman.
Silver hair.
Long dark coat.
She looked toward the house.
Even through the glass, I recognized her from a thirty-nine-year-old Polaroid.
My mother.
Ella Price.
May you like
She had come to find me.
But the man stepping out behind her was holding a gun against her back.
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