For several seconds, none of us moved.
The photograph lay faceup on the concrete between us, its corners curled with age. My mother stood in the center. Gabriel was beside her. Daniel Mercer stood on the other side, younger than the man I'd seen outside our house, but unmistakably the same person.
The image contradicted everything I thought I understood.
Mercer had supposedly been hunting my mother.
Yet here he was beside her three days after the fire.
Jessica crouched and picked up the photograph.
“That's my mother’s handwriting.”
She turned it over.
On the back, beneath the date, Elena had written only six words.
He says the danger is not over.
Maya read it twice.
“Who is ‘he’?”
Jessica looked at Gabriel's face.
“My uncle.”
“You said Gabriel helped your mother.”
“He did.”
“Then why was Mercer with them?”
“I don't know.”
A sharp pain ran through my palm.
I looked down.
Blood was running from a cut caused by the shattered glass.
Jessica reached for me.
I pulled my hand away.
She stopped immediately.
That small movement seemed to hurt her more than I intended.
Maya wrapped a clean cloth around my hand.
“We need to leave.”
“What about the ledger?”
“Take it.”
I picked it up.
The cover was heavier than it looked.
For decades, my mother had risked everything to protect this book. My father had hidden it without knowing exactly what it contained. Mercer had apparently killed and threatened people to recover it.
Now it was in my hands.
We left through the back of the garage and drove to Maya's office.
She locked the door behind us.
Jessica placed the photograph on the table.
“There's something we're missing,” she said.
Maya opened the ledger.
“We may find it here.”
The first pages contained dates and names.
The handwriting changed several times.
Some entries were typed and pasted into the book.
Others were written in ink.
Some names had been crossed out.
Others had been circled.
Near the middle, we found a series of payments made shortly before the fire.
Mercer received money.
So did Gabriel.
But the amounts were different.
Mercer received large transfers.
Gabriel received small ones.
My mother had written beside Gabriel's name:
Protection.
Beside Mercer's name:
Control.
Jessica leaned closer.
“That means my father paid Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“And Gabriel was being paid by my mother.”
“Possibly.”
I turned the page.
There was another entry.
Arthur Hayes — witness protection.
I looked at Maya.
“Dad knew.”
“He knew enough to be listed.”
“But not everything.”
Maya nodded.
A page near the end had been torn out.
The paper edge was fresh compared with the surrounding pages.
Someone had removed it recently.
Jessica noticed it too.
“Mercer took the missing page.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at the ledger.
“What's on the next page?”
A list of account numbers.
Then a single sentence.
The original is where the fire began.
I read it again.
“Where the fire began?”
Maya frowned.
“The house.”
“Which house?”
“Your mother's house.”
I shook my head.
“My father lived there afterward.”
“Then perhaps something survived.”
Jessica suddenly looked at me.
“The fireplace.”
“What?”
“Your father never let anyone renovate it.”
I remembered.
The old stone fireplace in Arthur's house had always been strangely untouched. Even when the rest of the living room was remodeled, he had refused to replace the stone.
“Why?”
“He said your mother liked it.”
I looked at Maya.
“We need to go back.”
The house was surrounded by police tape.
Maya spoke with an officer, explaining that we had discovered evidence connected to an ongoing investigation.
Eventually, we were allowed inside.
The fireplace was exactly as I remembered it.
Dark stone.
Cracked mortar.
A small iron grate.
I ran my fingers along the edge.
Nothing.
Jessica crouched beside me.
“Look.”
One stone was newer than the others.
Maya examined it.
“There's a cavity.”
She used a screwdriver to loosen the stone.
Behind it was a metal tube.
My heart began pounding.
Inside the tube was a roll of film.
And a key.
The key had a number stamped into it.
317.
The same number as the storage locker.
“We already opened that locker,” I said.
“Maybe there was another compartment,” Maya replied.
We returned to Union Station.
Locker 317 had already been cleared by police.
But Maya had noticed something the first time.
The floor panel was slightly raised.
She pried it up.
Beneath it was another compartment.
Inside was a second metal box.
This one contained letters.
All written by Elena.
The first letter was addressed to Arthur.
The second to Gabriel.
The third was addressed simply:
To my son, when he is old enough to understand.
I couldn't open it.
Not yet.
I held it against my chest.
Jessica stood several feet away.
She didn't ask to see it.
That mattered.
For once, she allowed me to have something that belonged only to me.
Maya opened the letter to Gabriel.
The contents were brief.
She thanked him for helping her escape.
Then she warned him never to trust Mercer.
The next line stopped us.
Mercer believes he works for Victor.
He does not.
I looked up.
“What does that mean?”
Maya kept reading.
Mercer has been working for someone else since before the fire.
Jessica whispered, “Who?”
The answer appeared in the next paragraph.
I don't know his name.
But he calls himself the Keeper.
The room became silent.
“A title?” I asked.
“Apparently,” Maya said.
Jessica shook her head.
“My father never mentioned anyone called that.”
Maya continued.
The Keeper wants the ledger because it contains more than Victor's crimes. It contains the names of people who have protected the Morales family for generations.
And one of those names is not a Morales.
Arthur.
I stared at the page.
My father wasn't merely a witness.
He had been part of something.
Something older than the fire.
Something my mother had never trusted enough to explain.
Then we heard footsteps outside the locker room.
Maya closed the box.
The door opened.
A police detective entered.
“Ethan Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“I need to speak with you.”
“About what?”
He looked at the photograph on the table.
“We found the man who shot at you.”
My chest tightened.
“Mercer?”
“No.”
He placed a photograph in front of me.
It showed Gabriel Morales.
Alive.
And sitting in the back of a police cruiser.
The detective continued.
“He asked for you by name.”
Jessica whispered, “Why?”
The detective looked directly at me.
“He says he can tell you who the Keeper is.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Gabriel Was Alive and Waiting for Me in a Police Cell, but His First Words Made Me Question Everything My Father Had Told Me
My Father Asked Me for a Thousand Dollars, Then Looked Past My Shoulder as Though He Was Afraid Someone Had Followed Him Home
Part 9 of 20
