Chapter 9 - The First Heir
I woke in intensive care just after sunset.
The trust deadline had passed.
Noah had not entered the Mercer estate.
Legally, control of the forty-eight-million-dollar fund should have transferred to the Mercer Children’s Foundation at six o’clock.
But it did not.
Judge Brandt had filed a last-minute order freezing the transfer due to a “disputed heir residency.”
Even while fleeing, Vane had preserved Vivian’s access to the money.
Helen sat beside me with a stack of documents.
“Daniel is missing again,” she said.
“Voluntarily?”
“We don’t know.”
“Melissa?”
“Also missing.”
“Vivian and Vane?”
“No confirmed location.”
I looked toward the twins.
They slept in separate bassinets between two officers.
“Tell me something useful.”
Helen opened a file.
“The photograph found on the attacker lists twelve children. We identified eight.”
“All custody cases?”
“Yes. Different states. Same methods.”
“Where are they now?”
“Four are enrolled at the Vermont school. Two live with wealthy guardians in Europe. One was adopted through a private agency in Arizona.”
“And the eighth?”
Helen hesitated.
“Benjamin Alden.”
Sophie’s son.
My breath caught.
“Where is he?”
“At the Mercer estate.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“Police found a sealed bedroom in the east wing. Toys, clothing, school records. The staff say a boy named Ben lived there until three months ago.”
“Why would Vivian have Sophie’s child?”
“We found a birth certificate naming Thomas Mercer as the father.”
Thomas had been dead for more than a decade before Benjamin was born.
“It’s false.”
“Of course.”
“Then why create it?”
Helen placed another document beside it.
The original Mercer trust did not simply require a male descendant.
It required the first legally recognized male heir to be raised at the estate.
“If Benjamin was registered as Thomas’s son, he would be Daniel’s half brother,” I said.
“And the first heir.”
“Then Noah was never necessary.”
“He became necessary because Benjamin disappeared.”
A chill moved through me.
“Who took him?”
“We don’t know.”
The room door opened.
Detective Reed entered with a teenage boy.
He was tall and painfully thin, with dark hair falling over his eyes. A faded scar crossed his left eyebrow.
He looked at me with a mixture of fear and defiance.
“This is Benjamin Alden,” Reed said.
Sophie’s son was not a newborn anymore.
He was fifteen.
My mind struggled to reconcile the sleeping infant from the old case photographs with the teenager standing before me.
“Where have you been?” Helen asked.
“Running.”
“From whom?”
“The Mercers.”
Benjamin looked at the twins.
“Which one is Noah?”
I shifted protectively.
“Why?”
“Because they’re going to kill him if they can’t own him.”
Reed pulled a chair closer.
Benjamin refused to sit.
He explained that he had lived at the Mercer estate for nearly eleven years. Vivian told him his mother abandoned him. He was educated by private tutors and rarely allowed beyond the property.
Vane visited often.
Judge Brandt brought documents for him to sign once he turned fourteen.
Three months earlier, Benjamin found a hidden box containing Sophie’s letters.
She had written to him every month until her death.
Vivian kept them all.
“She said my mother was crazy,” he whispered. “But crazy people don’t write six pages about the shape of your ears.”
He discovered the truth about the trust and ran away.
Without Benjamin at the estate, Vivian needed a replacement heir.
Noah.
“Why didn’t Vivian report you missing?” I asked.
“Because then police would ask why I was there.”
“How did you survive?”
“Shelters. Bus stations. A woman helped me reach Philadelphia after I saw the news.”
“What woman?”
“Melissa.”
Helen and Reed exchanged a look.
Benjamin continued.
“She found me two weeks ago. She said she had worked for Vane, but she wanted to make things right.”
“Where is she now?”
“She went back for Daniel.”
“So Daniel is with her?”
“He was. Until Vivian’s men took him.”
My heart sank.
“Where?”
“The old Mercer textile mill.”
The mill had closed twenty years earlier and sat near the state border. It was large enough to hide vehicles, people, and evidence.
Benjamin reached inside his jacket.
The officers moved immediately.
He froze.
“I’m not armed.”
Slowly, he removed a small leather ledger.
“I stole this from Vivian’s tunnel.”
Inside were handwritten entries dating back fifteen years.
Payments to Vane.
Payments to Pike.
Payments to Weller.
Payments to hospital staff, court clerks, police officers, and private adoption agencies.
Beside each payment was a child’s number.
Subject One through Subject Twelve.
Benjamin was Subject One.
Melissa’s daughter was Subject Twelve.
Noah had already been assigned a number.
Subject Thirteen.
At the bottom of the final page, Vivian had written:
If residency fails, eliminate competing heir before charitable transfer is finalized.
Helen read the sentence twice.
“Competing heir could mean Noah,” she said.
Benjamin shook his head.
“No.”
He pointed to his own name.
“It means me.”
Before anyone could respond, a bullet struck the hospital window.
The glass cracked but did not break.
Officers pushed Benjamin and me to the floor.
A second shot hit the reinforced pane directly behind his head.
May you like
Someone across the street was not aiming for my son.
They were trying to kill the first heir.
