Chapter 3 - The Mother Who Died Twice
"No."
Caroline said the word so quietly that Marcus almost didn't hear it.
Then she said it again.
"No."
The basement seemed to tilt beneath her feet.
Rebecca Hale's photograph lay faceup on the concrete floor: the dark-haired woman holding a newborn while Douglas Mercer stood beside her. Twenty-seven years ago. The year Caroline had always been told she was born into one of California's wealthiest families.
Marcus bent to retrieve the photograph.
Caroline stepped on it.
"Don't."
He stopped.
"My mother was Eleanor Mercer."
"Legally," Marcus said.
Caroline stared at him.
"Legally?"
"Caroline—"
"Eleanor raised me. She held me when I was sick. She taught me to swim. She sat beside my bed when I had nightmares."
"I know."
"Then don't stand there and tell me she wasn't my mother."
"I'm not."
Marcus's voice softened.
"I'm telling you she wasn't the woman who gave birth to you."
Caroline looked toward Evelyn.
The doctor had gone pale.
"You knew?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying."
"Everyone keeps saying that right before I discover another lie."
Evelyn lowered the pistol.
"I knew there were irregularities in your medical history. I did not know Rebecca Hale was your biological mother."
Caroline turned back to Marcus.
"Prove it."
Marcus hesitated.
That was enough.
"You have proof."
"I have evidence."
"Same thing."
"No. Evidence can be manipulated. That's the lesson you need to learn quickly."
Caroline laughed bitterly.
"Coming from the man who just told me my entire childhood was built on a lie?"
Marcus crossed to the evidence cabinet.
"Your birth certificate says Eleanor Mercer gave birth to you at Saint Catherine's Hospital."
"I know."
"Saint Catherine's closed eight years ago."
"So?"
"So I found the original maternity log."
He opened the box marked **MERCER** and removed a transparent evidence sleeve.
Inside was a photocopied hospital ledger.
Marcus pointed to a line.
**HALE, REBECCA — FEMALE INFANT — 03:14 A.M.**
Caroline's eyes moved down the page.
There was no Eleanor Mercer.
No Douglas Mercer.
No Caroline.
Marcus placed another document beside it.
"This was filed three days later."
A certificate of live birth.
**Caroline Elizabeth Mercer.**
Mother: Eleanor Mercer.
Father: Douglas Mercer.
Caroline compared the timestamps.
"Three days."
"Yes."
"What happened during those three days?"
"I don't know."
"Who changed the records?"
"I don't know."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Caroline shoved the documents away.
"For someone who's ruined my life twice in ten minutes, you know remarkably little."
Marcus accepted the insult.
Then Evelyn suddenly whispered, "Wait."
She had picked up the old photograph.
"What?"
Evelyn moved beneath the basement light.
She studied Rebecca's face.
Then the newborn.
Then Rebecca again.
"I've seen her."
Marcus turned sharply.
"Where?"
Evelyn's face tightened with concentration.
"I couldn't place her before because the photograph you showed me was taken years later."
"Evelyn."
"Give me a second."
Then her expression changed.
"Oh God."
"What?"
Evelyn looked at Caroline.
"She came to the hospital."
Caroline's heart seemed to miss a beat.
"When?"
"After the fire."
Silence filled the basement.
Marcus stepped toward her.
"You never told me that."
"I didn't know who she was."
"You told me everyone who visited."
"I told you everyone I remembered."
Caroline's damaged throat tightened.
"Rebecca visited me?"
Evelyn nodded slowly.
"You were unconscious. Maybe the fourth or fifth night."
"But Rebecca died in the fire."
"That's what we thought."
Marcus grabbed the photograph.
"When exactly?"
"I don't remember."
"Think."
"Marcus—"
"Think!"
Evelyn closed her eyes.
"It was raining."
Marcus froze.
Caroline saw him calculate something.
"What?"
"The fire happened on a Thursday."
"So?"
"It didn't rain until Tuesday."
Evelyn opened her eyes.
"Then Tuesday."
Marcus stared at Rebecca's photograph.
"Five days after Rebecca Hale supposedly died in Caroline's bedroom."
Nobody spoke.
Caroline finally whispered:
"Then whose body was in my room?"
---
Marcus locked the basement cabinet.
"We leave now."
Caroline didn't move.
"You can't drop that on me and walk away."
"We've been compromised."
"You don't know that."
"Someone arrested me less than an hour after we exposed the death certificate."
"You escaped."
Marcus looked at her.
"No."
Caroline frowned.
"What?"
"I didn't escape."
Evelyn stared at him.
"Then how are you here?"
"They released me."
"Why?"
Marcus's silence answered before his words did.
"They wanted me to come here."
Evelyn swore.
Caroline looked toward the stairs.
"They followed you."
"Probably."
"And you came anyway?"
"I needed the files."
Marcus began removing documents from the wall.
"Help me."
Caroline didn't.
"Who released you?"
"Holloway."
"Why?"
"He said something."
"What?"
Marcus stopped.
"He told me Caroline would eventually discover that some graves are safer unopened."
Caroline's face hardened.
"That's a threat."
"Yes."
"No."
She looked at the photograph of Rebecca.
"It's a warning."
Marcus turned toward her.
"What's the difference?"
"A threat means he wants me frightened."
She picked up the maternity record.
"A warning means he's frightened too."
For the first time, Marcus smiled.
Barely.
"You're learning."
Then headlights swept across the basement window.
Evelyn extinguished the light.
A car had stopped outside.
Marcus drew a pistol from beneath his shirt.
Caroline stared at it.
"Does every person I trust carry a gun?"
Marcus glanced at Evelyn's weapon.
"You trust her?"
"At the moment, slightly more than you."
"Fair."
A car door slammed.
Then another.
Marcus motioned toward the rear basement exit.
"Move."
They climbed through a narrow service passage and emerged behind the house.
Caroline's ribs screamed with every step.
They had almost reached Evelyn's Volvo when Marcus stopped.
"No."
"What?"
"The car."
Evelyn looked.
Her Volvo's driver's door was slightly open.
She had locked it.
Marcus pulled Caroline backward.
A second later, the vehicle exploded.
The blast threw all three of them to the ground.
Heat rolled across Caroline's back.
For one terrible instant, she was no longer behind an abandoned house.
She was twenty-seven again.
Smoke.
Flames.
Locked bedroom door.
Someone coughing outside.
Someone screaming her name.
Caroline curled into herself.
"Caroline!"
Marcus grabbed her shoulders.
She fought him.
"LET ME OUT!"
"Caroline!"
"The door!"
"You're outside!"
"THE DOOR IS LOCKED!"
"Caroline, look at me!"
Her eyes finally focused.
Marcus was kneeling over her.
Behind him, Evelyn's car burned.
Caroline gasped for air.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
Marcus helped her up.
Then Evelyn cried out.
She was staring toward the house.
A silhouette stood behind an upstairs curtain.
Watching them.
Marcus raised his pistol.
The figure disappeared.
"Run!"
They moved toward Marcus's car.
He started the engine before Caroline had fully closed her door.
As they accelerated away, Caroline looked backward.
The abandoned house grew smaller.
The fire consumed Evelyn's Volvo.
Then something vibrated inside Caroline's coat.
She reached into the pocket.
A phone.
Not hers.
A tiny black burner phone.
"Marcus."
"What?"
"This isn't mine."
The screen illuminated.
One message.
**YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD.**
A second message arrived.
A photograph.
Caroline opened it.
Her breath stopped.
It showed Marcus entering the abandoned house less than twenty minutes earlier.
Someone had been watching.
Then another photograph arrived.
Douglas Mercer.
He was standing beside a hospital bed.
The timestamp was from five days after the fire.
Caroline zoomed in.
A woman lay in the bed.
Bandages covered her face.
Douglas was holding her hand.
Caroline's pulse accelerated.
"That's me."
Evelyn leaned closer from the back seat.
"No."
Caroline looked at her.
"What?"
Evelyn stared at the image.
"That isn't your room."
Caroline enlarged the photograph.
Different walls.
Different monitors.
Different bed.
But Douglas was unmistakable.
The patient was severely burned.
Her face was completely covered.
Marcus slowed the car.
"Could it be Rebecca?"
Evelyn shook her head.
"I don't know."
A third message arrived.
**ASK DOUGLAS WHICH DAUGHTER HE VISITED FIRST.**
Caroline stared at the words.
"Which daughter?"
Nobody answered.
Another message appeared.
This one contained no photograph.
Only an address.
Caroline recognized it.
The Mercer estate.
Below it:
**MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO MEET REBECCA HALE.**
Marcus grabbed the phone.
"No."
Caroline snatched it back.
"If she's alive—"
"It's a trap."
"Obviously."
"Then we're not going."
Caroline looked at him.
"You don't get to decide that anymore."
"Caroline."
"Someone died in my bedroom. Someone rewrote my birth certificate. Someone paid Rebecca Hale a quarter of a million dollars. My father visited a burned woman while I was fighting for my life, and now someone is claiming my biological mother is alive."
Marcus's voice hardened.
"Which is exactly why walking into the Mercer estate alone would be suicidal."
Caroline looked through the window.
The California coastline flashed past them.
She remembered Eleanor Mercer.
Her mother.
Whatever blood said, Caroline refused to think of her any other way.
Eleanor had died when Caroline was sixteen.
Cancer.
At least that was what Caroline had always been told.
Suddenly even that certainty felt fragile.
"What did Eleanor know?"
Marcus didn't answer.
Caroline turned toward him.
"You investigated my birth. You investigated Rebecca. You investigated Douglas. What did Eleanor know?"
Marcus kept driving.
"Marcus."
"She knew you weren't biologically hers."
The words hurt more than Caroline expected.
"Did she know Rebecca?"
"Yes."
"How?"
Marcus looked at her.
"Rebecca worked for your mother."
Caroline frowned.
"Doing what?"
"She wasn't an employee."
"Then what was she?"
Marcus hesitated.
"Her friend."
Caroline waited.
Marcus's expression told her there was more.
"What aren't you saying?"
"Eleanor and Rebecca met when they were nineteen."
"And?"
"They remained close for years."
"And?"
"Until Douglas entered the picture."
Caroline slowly understood.
"My father had an affair with Rebecca."
"That's what I originally believed."
"Originally?"
Marcus nodded.
"Then I found letters."
"What letters?"
"Between Eleanor and Rebecca."
Caroline stared at him.
Marcus took a breath.
"They weren't written like letters between friends."
Caroline felt another piece of her childhood fracture.
Before she could ask, the burner phone rang.
All three stared at it.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
Marcus shook his head.
"Don't."
Caroline answered.
"Hello?"
Static.
Then breathing.
A woman.
Old.
Weak.
"Caroline?"
Caroline stopped breathing.
The voice continued.
"I don't have much time."
"Who is this?"
"You already know."
Caroline gripped the phone.
"Rebecca?"
Marcus immediately pulled the car toward the roadside.
The woman began crying.
Not loudly.
The sound was exhausted.
"Listen to me. Douglas lied to you."
"About what?"
"Everything."
"Where are you?"
"Don't come to the estate."
Caroline looked at Marcus.
"You sent the message."
"No."
Caroline's stomach dropped.
"Then who did?"
"I don't know."
A noise sounded on the woman's end.
A door opening.
Rebecca gasped.
"They found me."
"Rebecca?"
"Caroline, listen."
The voice became frantic.
"The woman who raised you loved you. Never doubt that."
Caroline's eyes filled with tears.
"What happened to her?"
Silence.
"Rebecca?"
"Eleanor didn't die from cancer."
Caroline's entire body went cold.
"What?"
"She found out what Douglas had done."
"What did he do?"
A man's voice sounded faintly in the background.
Rebecca began whispering.
"I have to go."
"No! Tell me what he did!"
"Find the blue room."
"What blue room?"
"Your childhood house."
"That house was demolished."
"No."
Rebecca's breathing quickened.
"Douglas only told you it was."
A crash came through the phone.
Rebecca screamed.
Caroline shouted her name.
The call remained connected for another three seconds.
Then a man's voice came through.
Calm.
Close to the phone.
"Caroline."
She recognized it.
Chief Richard Holloway.
"If you want your mother to remain alive," he said, "come to the Mercer estate at midnight."
The call ended.
Caroline stared at the dark screen.
Marcus whispered, "He has Rebecca."
Caroline looked at the time.
11:17 P.M.
Forty-three minutes.
Then the burner phone illuminated one final time.
A live video appeared.
Rebecca Hale sat tied to a chair.
Behind her stood Chief Holloway.
But Caroline barely noticed him.
Her attention was fixed on the second prisoner sitting beside Rebecca.
A man whose hands were bound behind his back.
Blood covered his white shirt.
Caroline knew that face.
"Dad."
Douglas Mercer lifted his head toward the camera.
And behind him, written across the wall in fresh red paint, were five words:
**ONE OF THEM IS YOUR PARENT.**