Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO HAD TO DIEI stared at Special Agent Evelyn Shaw while rain hammered the metal roof of Unit 17.
“Mr. Mercer,” he whispered. “Don’t go home.”
I turned toward him, still holding the folded American flag the funeral director had handed me.
Behind us, the last guests were leaving Cedar Hill Cemetery beneath a sky the color of dirty steel. My mother stood beside the black limousine, one hand pressed to her mouth while my wife, Rachel, held her elbow.
Everything looked exactly the way grief was supposed to look.
Black coats.
Wet leaves.
Red eyes.
Quiet voices.
Then the gravedigger opened his palm.
A brass key lay across his dirt-stained glove.
Stamped into it were two numbers.
17.
“What is this?” I asked.
The older man glanced toward my mother.
Then toward the hearse.
His name was Walter Briggs. I knew that because my father had mentioned him once, years earlier, after helping repair the cemetery’s maintenance garage.
Walter leaned closer.
“Your father paid me six months ago.”
My throat tightened.
“For what?”
“To bury an empty coffin.”
For several seconds, the cemetery seemed to go completely silent.
I stared at him.
“My father died Tuesday.”
Walter’s expression did not change.
“I know what everyone was told.”
“I saw him at the funeral home.”
“No,” Walter said quietly. “You saw a closed casket.”
My mind began replaying the past three days.
Dad’s supposed heart attack.
My mother insisting the funeral home not embalm him because he had “always hated the idea.”
The sudden decision to keep the coffin closed.
The doctor’s signature.
The hurried burial.
I had questioned none of it.
Because people do strange things when someone dies.
And because I trusted my mother.
Walter pushed the key into my hand.
“Route 9 Self Storage. Unit Seventeen.”
“What's inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is my father alive?”
Walter looked at me for a long moment.
Then he said the most terrifying thing anyone had ever said to me.
“I was told not to answer that.”
My phone buzzed.
A message from Mom.
COME HOME ALONE. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT YOUR FATHER.
Walter saw my expression.
“Whatever that says,” he whispered, “don’t do it.”
I looked toward the limousine.
My mother was watching me.
Even from fifty yards away, I could feel it.
Rachel started walking toward me.
“Daniel?”
Walter stepped backward, already returning toward the open grave.
“Go,” he murmured.
“What if this is some kind of joke?”
“Your father paid me ten thousand dollars to make sure you got that key.”
My fingers closed around the brass.
“Why me?”
Walter picked up his shovel.
“Because he said you were the only person left he could trust.”
Twenty minutes later, I was driving north on Route 9 instead of following my family home.
I told Rachel there was something I had to handle for the estate.
It was a lie.
The first lie I had told my wife in eleven years.
Rain began falling as I reached the storage facility.
Unit 17 stood at the end of the second row.
I inserted the key.
The lock opened.
Inside was a single metal desk.
A chair.
Three cardboard boxes.
And a television mounted on the wall.
Nothing else.
I stepped inside.
The television turned on by itself.
My father appeared on the screen.
Alive.
Sitting in his study.
Wearing the blue flannel shirt I had given him for Christmas.
My knees almost gave out.
“Daniel,” he said on the recording.
I moved closer.
“If you're watching this, then officially, I’m dead.”
My hand covered my mouth.
Dad looked directly into the camera.
“And if everything went according to plan, your mother believes you still know nothing.”
I stopped breathing.
He continued.
“Before you do anything, open the top drawer of the desk.”
I pulled it open.
Inside was a black FBI identification wallet.
A photograph.
And a loaded prepaid phone.
The photograph showed my father standing beside three men outside a warehouse.
One of them was my uncle Robert.
The second was my mother’s longtime attorney.
The third man I didn't recognize.
My father’s recorded voice became quieter.
“For twenty-two years, I kept a secret because I thought protecting this family meant keeping my mouth shut.”
He swallowed.
“I was wrong.”
A sound came from behind me.
Metal scraping concrete.
I spun around.
A woman stood in the doorway.
Mid-forties.
Dark suit beneath a raincoat.
Hand near the weapon at her waist.
She raised an FBI badge.
“Daniel Mercer?”
I said nothing.
Her eyes dropped to the photograph in my hand.
“My name is Special Agent Evelyn Shaw.”
My pulse hammered.
“Where is my father?”
She stepped inside and closed the storage door.
“I’m going to answer that.”
May you like
Then she locked it.
“But first, Daniel, you need to understand why your father had to die.”
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