Chapter 6 - Blood at Room Fourteen
Sarah fired from beside the dresser.
The missing guard dropped behind the doorframe.
A bullet shattered the mirror above Emma’s head.
Glass rained across the bed.
Frank groaned and pressed both hands against his wound. Blood soaked through his shirt.
Emma crawled toward the bathroom.
“Stay down!” Sarah shouted.
The guard fired again.
Sarah’s weapon clicked empty.
The silence that followed lasted less than a second.
Emma grabbed the motel lamp and hurled it toward the doorway. The guard flinched. Sarah rushed him, striking his wrist against the frame.
The gun fell.
They crashed into the walkway outside.
Emma reached for the weapon.
A boot kicked it away.
Another man emerged from the stairwell.
Nathan Mercer.
He wore dark jeans and a black raincoat. His hair was wet, and his face held none of the easy humor he displayed at family dinners.
He pointed a pistol at Emma.
“Move away from the gun.”
Sarah froze with one knee against the guard’s chest.
“Nathan,” Emma said.
“I’m sorry you’re involved.”
“You framed me.”
“That was Daniel’s plan.”
“And you helped.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“I help myself.”
Rain blew into the room.
Frank made a wet coughing sound behind the bed.
Nathan glanced toward him.
“That old man has spent twenty-five years inventing stories to avoid prison.”
“He confessed.”
“To whatever Sarah wanted to hear.”
Sarah slowly lifted her hands.
“You murdered the protection officer.”
Nathan looked at the unconscious agent near the ice machine.
“He’s alive.”
“And the other?”
Nathan nodded toward the guard beneath Sarah.
“Paid.”
Emma stared at him.
“What do you want?”
“Robert’s letter.”
“It’s gone.”
“Page seven.”
“I never had it.”
Nathan studied her face.
He seemed to believe her.
“Then Vivian has it.”
“Why does everyone care about that page?”
“Because it proves Charles isn’t my father.”
The answer landed without surprise.
Margaret’s DNA test had already suggested it.
“Who is?”
“Robert.”
Emma looked toward Sarah.
Margaret’s late husband had fathered Nathan with Vivian.
The Mercer family tree had become a web of betrayals.
Nathan continued. “Robert planned to expose everything. The fraud, your father’s land, my parentage. He was going to leave Vivian and acknowledge me publicly.”
“Did you kill him?” Emma asked.
Nathan’s eyes flashed.
“No.”
“Did Daniel?”
Nathan said nothing.
That silence carried an answer.
A siren sounded in the distance.
Nathan backed toward the railing.
“Daniel is moving the money tonight.”
“What money?”
“Everything. Foundation accounts, development funds, offshore reserves. More than eighty million dollars.”
Sarah shifted slightly.
Nathan raised the pistol.
“Don’t.”
“Why tell us?” Emma asked.
“Because he plans to leave me behind.”
Nathan gave a humorless smile.
“Daniel always needs someone to take the fall.”
“Where is he transferring it?”
“I don’t know the final account. Vivian does.”
“Then help us get her.”
Nathan looked at Emma.
For a moment, she saw the frightened younger brother beneath the polished arrogance. He had spent his life competing with Daniel for approval from a man who was not even his father.
But fear did not erase guilt.
“You think I can testify and walk away?” he asked.
“No. I think you can choose whether you face prison for fraud or murder.”
The sirens grew louder.
Nathan looked toward the parking lot.
Then he fired at the overhead light.
Darkness swallowed the walkway.
By the time emergency lights flickered on, he was gone.
Sarah retrieved the pistol and called for medical support.
Emma returned to Frank.
His breathing had become shallow.
“Stay with me,” she said.
He gripped her wrist.
“I damaged the steering,” he whispered. “Charles said Thomas would be alone.”
“He wasn’t?”
“Your mother was in the car.”
Emma felt cold spread through her body.
Her mother had supposedly disappeared a week before her father’s death.
“Did she die too?”
Frank shook his head.
“Car went over the rail. Thomas was trapped. She got out.”
“Where did she go?”
“Vivian took her.”
Emma leaned closer.
“Why?”
“To hide her from Charles.”
“Where is she now?”
Frank’s eyes drifted toward the ceiling.
“She called herself Rebecca after that.”
“Where is Rebecca?”
“I don’t know.”
The paramedics arrived.
They moved Emma aside and worked on Frank.
Sarah pulled her toward the walkway.
“We need to leave before Nathan circles back.”
“My mother might be alive.”
“We’ll find her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” Sarah admitted. “But now we have a name.”
Emma’s phone rang.
Vivian.
Sarah gestured for her to answer.
Vivian spoke before Emma could.
“Is Frank alive?”
“How do you know where I am?”
“Because Nathan is predictable.”
“You took my mother after the crash.”
Vivian became silent.
Emma stepped into the rain.
“Her name was Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
The single word nearly broke her.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I protected her for eight years.”
“From Charles?”
“From all of us.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“Why did she never contact me?”
“She wanted to. Thomas’s death destroyed her. Charles threatened to kill you if she returned.”
“Where did she go after eight years?”
“She disappeared from the apartment I rented for her. She left a note telling me never to search.”
“You let me believe she abandoned me.”
“Thomas believed that story would keep you safe.”
“My father survived long enough to tell me she left.”
“He was protecting you too.”
Emma remembered her father standing in the kitchen, eyes red, saying her mother had chosen another life. He had hugged Emma while she cried.
The lie had cost him something.
Now she understood how much.
Vivian’s voice softened.
“Come to the mansion. I have page seven.”
“No.”
“It contains your mother’s last known address.”
Emma looked toward Sarah.
“Send me a photograph.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel is watching every device in the house.”
“Then leave.”
“I can’t do that either.”
For the first time, Vivian sounded afraid.
“Daniel locked me in the library. He knows I spoke to Nathan.”
Emma almost dismissed it as manipulation.
Then she heard pounding in the background.
A man shouted.
Vivian lowered her voice.
“He is transferring the money at midnight. Once it’s gone, he will burn the records and blame you.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Come alone.”
Sarah shook her head immediately.
Emma asked, “Why alone?”
“Because Daniel still believes you have the second copy. He won’t kill me until you arrive.”
A crash sounded through the phone.
Vivian gasped.
Then Daniel’s voice came on the line.
“Hello, Emma.”
She gripped the phone.
“Where is your mother?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. But Vivian does.”
Emma heard a woman crying in the background.
Daniel continued calmly.
“Bring Robert’s original trust documents to Bellweather Ridge by eleven thirty.”
“I don’t have them.”
“Then find them.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
Daniel’s answer was gentle.
“I’ll bury my mother in the same foundation we poured over your father’s body.”
The call ended.
Emma stared into the rain.
Bellweather Ridge.
The stolen land.
May you like
The development built over her father’s legacy.
And perhaps, if Daniel’s threat was more than cruelty, the place where Thomas Hale had actually been buried.
