Chapter 5 - The Bullet and the PhotographHannah did not remember deciding to leave the mansion.
She only remembered reaching the front hall and finding two guards blocking the door.
“Ms. Brooks, we have orders—”
“Move.”
“We can’t.”
“Gideon has been shot.”
“We know.”
“And you expect me to stand here?”
One guard looked uncomfortable.
“Mr. Reed ordered lockdown.”
Hannah held up her phone.
“Then call him.”
“We cannot distract—”
The iron gates opened beyond the windows.
Three SUVs tore up the driveway.
Hannah stopped breathing.
The first vehicle barely stopped before Daniel jumped out.
Blood covered his shirt.
Not his blood.
Gideon’s.
Men opened the rear door.
Gideon was conscious.
Barely.
His left shoulder was soaked red.
“Hannah.”
She moved before anyone could stop her.
“What happened?”
“Through-and-through,” Daniel said. “Upper shoulder. Doctor’s on the way.”
“Hospital.”
“No,” Gideon muttered.
Hannah stared at him.
“You’ve been shot.”
“It’s not life-threatening.”
“You do not know that.”
“I do.”
“You are currently leaking on Italian leather.”
Gideon looked down vaguely.
“So I am.”
Two guards helped him inside.
The private physician arrived within minutes.
Hannah watched from outside the library while the doctor cleaned and stitched the wound.
Noah slept through everything upstairs.
That was the only mercy.
Daniel stood beside Hannah.
“What happened?”
“The warehouse was empty.”
“Then who shot him?”
“Sniper from the adjacent roof.”
“Julian?”
“We don’t know.”
Hannah showed him the messages.
Daniel read them carefully.
His face changed when he saw the photograph of Teresa Brooks.
“Where did you get this?”
“Unknown number.”
He enlarged the image.
“Have you seen it before?”
“No.”
“You’re certain this is your mother?”
“Yes.”
Hannah stared at Teresa’s face.
She had almost forgotten what her mother looked like.
Dark blond hair.
Brown eyes.
A narrow smile.
Hannah had spent fifteen years convincing herself she no longer cared why Teresa left.
The photograph destroyed that illusion in seconds.
When the doctor finished, Gideon insisted everyone leave the library except Hannah and Daniel.
Hannah placed her phone on the desk.
“Explain.”
Gideon looked at the photograph.
The color left his face.
“You’ve seen her.”
“No.”
“You recognized something.”
“The handwriting.”
Hannah’s pulse quickened.
“Whose?”
“My father’s.”
She sat down.
Daniel closed the doors.
Gideon studied the image for a long moment.
“My father kept records on anyone connected to private shipments.”
“My mother was connected?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s the truth.”
Hannah stood.
“Then find a better truth.”
Gideon’s eyes rose.
She did not care that he was injured.
She did not care who he was.
“My father told me my mother left us. He drank himself to death three years later. My grandmother spent the rest of her life refusing to talk about Teresa. Now someone sends me a photograph of my mother standing with your father at a warehouse connected to smuggling, and you expect me to accept ‘I don’t know’?”
“No.”
Gideon pushed himself upright despite the pain.
“I expect you to let me investigate.”
“Your investigation nearly got you killed.”
“That does not make it unnecessary.”
Hannah’s anger broke.
“What did Silas Mercer do to her?”
“I don’t know!”
It was the first time Gideon raised his voice.
The room went still.
He lowered it again.
“My father was not a good man, Hannah.”
“You loved him?”
“He was my father.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
Gideon’s face hardened with memory.
“I respected what he built. I feared what he was capable of. And toward the end, I despised many things he had done.”
“What things?”
Gideon looked at Daniel.
Daniel understood.
“There’s a basement archive beneath the old Mercer corporate office,” he said. “Silas kept paper files. Gideon never destroyed them because some were needed for legal protection.”
Hannah turned to Gideon.
“So my mother might be in there.”
“Yes.”
“Take me.”
“No.”
She laughed once.
“You really haven’t learned anything.”
“Hannah—”
“I am going.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“So is walking along a river.”
His expression tightened.
Daniel stepped between them verbally.
“We can secure the building first.”
Hannah pointed at him.
“I like him.”
Daniel almost smiled.
Gideon did not.
The next morning they entered the Mercer corporate archive.
The building sat on Bay Street, hidden behind a respectable brick façade.
Two floors below ground, Hannah saw what remained of Silas Mercer’s secret empire.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
Shipping manifests.
Passports.
Cash transaction records.
Names of judges, customs officers, businessmen, politicians.
Some were dead.
Some were still influential.
Daniel opened a cabinet labeled 2005–2009.
Hannah searched for nearly an hour.
Nothing.
Then she noticed a drawer labeled TB.
Her hands shook.
Inside was a thin brown folder.
TERESA BROOKS.
Hannah stopped breathing.
Gideon stood beside her.
“Open it.”
She did.
The first page contained a photograph of her mother.
The second was a typed employment record.
Teresa Brooks had worked for Mercer Shipping.
Not as a clerk.
Not as a cleaner.
As an accounting analyst.
The third page contained an internal warning.
EMPLOYEE HAS IDENTIFIED UNAUTHORIZED ACCOUNT DISCREPANCIES.
The fourth was worse.
She had discovered money missing from Silas Mercer’s illegal network.
Millions of dollars.
Someone inside Mercer Shipping had been stealing from Silas.
And Teresa knew who.
Hannah turned the page.
It was blank except for one handwritten sentence.
T. BROOKS REQUESTED WITNESS PROTECTION. PROBLEM RESOLVED BEFORE FEDERAL CONTACT.
Hannah’s hands went numb.
“Problem resolved?”
Gideon looked sick.
“Hannah…”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“No.”
She slammed the file onto the table.
“What did your father do to my mother?”
Daniel lifted another page that had been stuck to the folder backing.
“Wait.”
It contained a copy of an airline ticket.
Teresa Brooks.
Savannah to Washington, D.C.
April 19, 2007.
Two days after the handwritten note.
Hannah stared.
“So she escaped.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Maybe.”
“Why maybe?”
“Because the ticket was never used.”
Silence.
Then an alarm sounded through the archive.
Daniel grabbed his weapon.
“Everyone against the wall.”
The lights went out.
Hannah heard glass break.
Then smoke filled the hallway.
Gideon pulled her behind a concrete pillar.
Gunshots exploded from the stairwell.
Daniel returned fire.
Hannah covered her ears.
Someone shouted.
Another shot.
Then she heard a voice through the smoke.
A man’s voice.
Calm.
Almost amused.
“Hello, brother.”
Gideon went completely still.
A figure appeared beyond the gray haze.
Tall.
Silver beginning at his temples.
A familiar Mercer face.
Julian.
Alive.
He smiled at Gideon.
Then looked directly at Hannah.
“You have your mother’s eyes.”
Hannah’s blood turned cold.
“You knew her.”
Julian’s smile faded.
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
He raised his gun.
Gideon stepped in front of Hannah.
Julian’s eyes sharpened.
“Still collecting strays, Gideon?”
“Put the weapon down.”
“No.”
“Where is Teresa Brooks?”
Julian looked at Hannah.
Then he gave her the answer she had waited fifteen years to hear.
“Your mother didn’t abandon you.”
Hannah’s throat closed.
May you like
Julian smiled again.
“She died trying to protect you.”
Related Stories
