I couldn't move.
The phone remained against my ear long after the call ended.
Jessica was watching me.
Maya stood beside the table.
Arthur had closed his eyes.
“Was it her?” he asked.
I nodded.
My father turned his face toward the window.
For the first time since the hospital, he looked relieved.
“She called.”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“Don't trust Gabriel.”
Arthur's relief disappeared.
He looked at Maya.
“She knows.”
“What?” I asked.
“She knows Gabriel found her.”
I stood.
“Then we have to go.”
Arthur shook his head.
“No.”
“You just told me she knows he's after her.”
“That doesn't mean you should run toward him.”
“She called me.”
“She may have been forced to.”
The thought stopped me.
“Mercer?”
Arthur nodded.
“Or Gabriel.”
Jessica looked toward the door.
“What if they're working together?”
Maya answered.
“Then we need to know before we move.”
I looked at her.
“How?”
“Your mother's call can be traced.”
She picked up her phone.
“Not perfectly, but enough to narrow the location.”
We waited.
Five minutes.
Then ten.
Finally Maya looked up.
“She called from a public line.”
“Where?”
“Bellingham.”
Jessica went pale.
“The warehouse.”
“No,” Maya said. “A motel.”
She turned the laptop toward us.
The location matched the address from the photograph.
My mother's call had come from the same building.
We left within the hour.
Arthur tried to stop me again.
I kissed his forehead.
“I've spent my whole life believing she was gone.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
“I can't lose her again.”
He squeezed my hand.
“Then don't.”
The drive north was quiet.
Jessica sat beside me.
For almost an hour, neither of us spoke.
Finally she said, “I owe you the truth about one more thing.”
I kept my eyes on the road.
“What?”
“I knew Gabriel existed.”
“You said you didn't know where he was.”
“I don't.”
“What did he do?”
“My father blamed him for losing the ledger.”
“Was that true?”
“I don't know.”
“You've known about him all these years?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid you'd find him before I did.”
“What were you going to do if you found him?”
She stared through the windshield.
“Ask him where my mother was.”
I believed her.
Not because I trusted her.
Because I recognized the desperation in her voice.
We reached the motel just after noon.
It was a low building beside a highway.
The office smelled of stale coffee and disinfectant.
Maya showed the clerk a photograph.
“Have you seen this woman?”
The clerk looked at it.
Then at us.
“Room fourteen.”
My heart jumped.
“Is she still here?”
The clerk hesitated.
“She left this morning.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Was she alone?”
“No.”
“Who was with her?”
The clerk looked toward the parking lot.
“An older man.”
“Gabriel?”
“I don't know his name.”
“Where did they go?”
He pointed toward the back road.
“They had a dark SUV.”
We ran outside.
The parking lot was empty.
Then Jessica noticed something on the ground.
A small scarf.
She picked it up.
“My mother's.”
I took it.
It smelled faintly of lavender.
The same scent I remembered from childhood, though I had not smelled it in decades.
I pressed the fabric against my hand.
“She was here.”
Maya looked around.
“Then we're close.”
A motel employee approached.
“There was a note.”
He handed me an envelope.
My name was written on it.
Ethan.
My fingers shook.
I opened it.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
My mother.
I read the first line.
If you're reading this, I finally ran out of places to hide.
I sat on the motel steps.
The letter explained that Elena had stayed alive by moving constantly.
She had watched Ethan from a distance more than once.
She had seen him graduate.
Seen him marry.
Seen photographs of him online.
She had wanted to approach him.
But every attempt had been stopped by threats.
Not from Victor.
From Mercer.
The next paragraph made my stomach turn.
Mercer wasn't working for Victor anymore.
He had been building his own operation.
He had stolen the Morales records and used them to blackmail people who had helped Victor.
He had kept Elena alive because she was the only person who knew where the final ledger had been hidden.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
The ledger is not in Canada.
I read on.
It was hidden in Oregon.
Inside the house where Ethan was raised.
I looked up.
Arthur's house.
The blue bungalow.
Maya took the letter.
“There's more.”
I kept reading.
Your father doesn't know the whole truth.
My heart sank.
Elena explained that Arthur had believed he was protecting me, but she had never told him where the ledger was because she feared someone would force him to reveal it.
She had hidden it before the fire.
In the only place she believed no one would search.
My childhood home.
I remembered the cedar chest.
The folders.
The journal.
Everything we'd found.
“Where?” Jessica whispered.
I read the final paragraph.
Look for the thing Arthur never allowed you to touch.
I stared at the words.
“What did he never let me touch?”
Jessica thought.
“The basement?”
“There wasn't one.”
“The attic?”
“Locked for years.”
Maya looked at me.
“Anything else?”
I remembered my childhood.
My father had been strict about one thing.
There was an old wooden workbench in the garage.
He had never let me open the bottom drawer.
When I asked why, he always said it contained tools that could hurt me.
I stood.
“The workbench.”
We drove back toward Portland.
The entire way, Jessica remained silent.
Finally I said, “If the ledger is there, why didn't Mercer find it?”
“Maybe he didn't know.”
“He searched the house.”
“He may not have known about the drawer.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“Would you have taken it if you had found it?”
She didn't answer immediately.
“Yes.”
“At least you're honest.”
“I would have taken it to my mother.”
“And then?”
“I don't know.”
That was the problem.
Neither of us knew what would happen when the truth was finally exposed.
We reached Arthur's house.
The police had already cleared the scene.
The back door was damaged.
Inside, drawers had been pulled open.
The cedar chest had been disturbed.
The bedroom looked as though someone had emptied it and then abandoned the search.
We went to the garage.
The workbench stood beneath a dusty window.
I knelt.
The bottom drawer was locked.
I tried one key.
Nothing.
A second.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the brass key Arthur had given me.
I inserted it.
The lock turned.
Inside was a metal box wrapped in oilcloth.
My hands trembled as I lifted it.
Jessica stepped closer.
Maya stopped her.
“Let Ethan open it.”
I unwrapped the cloth.
Inside was a black ledger.
Hundreds of pages.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Bank accounts.
Photographs.
And near the front, a list of people connected to Victor's operation.
One name was circled.
Daniel Mercer.
Another name appeared beneath it.
Gabriel Morales.
I turned the page.
Then stopped.
My own father's name was there.
Arthur Hayes.
Next to it was a date.
The date of the fire.
My stomach dropped.
“Why is my father listed?”
Jessica leaned closer.
Maya read the page.
Then she went silent.
“What?”
She pointed to a handwritten note beside Arthur's name.
Arthur was not a participant.
He was the protected witness.
I exhaled.
Then I turned another page.
A photograph fell out.
It showed my mother standing beside Gabriel.
On the back was a date.
The day after the fire.
She had survived.
But beneath the photograph, in my mother's handwriting, was a sentence that made my blood run cold.
Gabriel saved my life that night.
I looked at Jessica.
“Then why did she tell me not to trust him?”
Nobody answered.
The garage door suddenly slammed shut.
A car engine roared outside.
Maya grabbed my shoulder.
“Down!”
The first gunshot shattered the window.
Glass exploded across the workbench.
Jessica pulled me to the floor.
Another shot struck the metal box.
The ledger slid across the concrete.
Then everything became silent.
I looked toward the broken window.
A dark SUV was disappearing down the street.
And on the floor beside the ledger lay one final photograph.
My mother.
Gabriel.
And Daniel Mercer.
Standing together three days after the fire.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: The Photograph Proved My Mother Had Stood Beside Mercer After the Fire, but the Ledger Suggested Someone Else Had Been Controlling Him All Along
My Father Asked Me for a Thousand Dollars, Then Looked Past My Shoulder as Though He Was Afraid Someone Had Followed Him Home
Part 8 of 20
