Chapter 8 - Daniel Learns Who His Mother Is
Daniel tore the camera from the greenhouse beam.
It was transmitting wirelessly.
Marcus traced the signal to a relay hidden near the property line, but
whoever had been watching disconnected before security reached it.
Daniel barely cared.
One sentence had split his life in half.
Eleanor was his biological mother.
Evelyn had raised him.
Charles had lied about both women.
Daniel sat in the library with Lily asleep against his chest.
He refused to let her out of his sight.
Evelyn sat across from him.
Charles remained under guard near the door.
Vanessa stood by the fireplace.
“Start at the beginning,” Daniel said.
Evelyn looked at Charles.
“No more protecting him.”
Charles gave a hollow laugh.
“You think I’m the one you protected?”
Evelyn ignored him.
“Eleanor was brilliant. Difficult. Fearless. She and Charles were only
eleven months apart.”
Daniel looked at Charles.
“You told me you were an only child.”
“I wanted that part of my life buried.”
“Apparently you bury a lot of people.”
Charles accepted the blow.
Evelyn continued.
“Eleanor became pregnant at twenty-two. She refused to name the father.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you raise me?”
“Because Eleanor vanished when you were fourteen months old.”
Daniel looked at Charles.
“You said you raised me.”
“I did.”
“With Evelyn.”
Charles nodded.
“We were already married. We had been trying unsuccessfully to have
children.”
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“When Eleanor disappeared, Charles brought you home.”
“Just like that?”
“No.”
Evelyn looked ashamed.
“He had paperwork.”
“Fake paperwork?”
“Yes.”
Daniel rubbed Lily’s back mechanically.
“What did you believe happened to Eleanor?”
“Charles told me she was unstable and had abandoned you.”
“Was she?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“She struggled after your birth. But she loved you.”
Charles finally spoke.
“She was dangerous.”
Daniel looked at him.
“That word seems useful in this family.”
Charles leaned forward.
“You want truth? Eleanor was obsessed with exposing our father. She
believed he was using psychiatric hospitals to hide people who
threatened the family.”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“Northstar.”
“It had another name then.”
“So Eleanor discovered the same thing Rachel later discovered.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at Evelyn.
“And you?”
“I believed Charles for years.”
“What changed?”
“I found Eleanor’s journals.”
“When?”
“2013.”
One year before Evelyn’s staged death.
“She wrote about accounts, doctors, judges, private investigators. She
believed the Mercer family had built an entire system for making
inconvenient people disappear.”
Daniel looked at Charles.
“Your father?”
“At first.”
“At first?”
Charles’s face hardened.
“My father started it. Eleanor tried to expose him. I tried to stop her
from doing something reckless.”
“Did you make her disappear?”
“No.”
“Did you steal me?”
Charles looked at the floor.
“I took you after she vanished.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No. I did not take you from her.”
Daniel wanted to believe that.
He did not.
Vanessa stepped forward.
“What happened in 2014?”
Evelyn answered.
“Rachel contacted me.”
Daniel looked at her.
“She had found transactions connected to Northstar and wanted someone
inside the Mercer family to help.”
“You helped her.”
“Yes.”
“Then Dad found out.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Charles found out later.”
Charles looked up sharply.
Daniel noticed.
“Who found out first?”
Evelyn’s voice became quiet.
“Eleanor.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“You knew she was alive?”
“Not until she contacted me.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before the boat explosion.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“You spoke to her?”
“Once.”
“What did she want?”
“You.”
Charles interrupted.
“She wanted control.”
Evelyn snapped, “She wanted her son.”
“She wanted revenge.”
Daniel stood carefully so he would not wake Lily.
“Both of you stop telling me what she wanted. Tell me what she did.”
Evelyn nodded.
“She asked me to bring you to her.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of her?”
“Of what Charles would do.”
Charles looked wounded.
Evelyn continued.
“Then Rachel discovered Eleanor was connected to several Northstar shell
companies.”
Daniel frowned.
“If Eleanor was exposing Northstar, why was she connected to it?”
“That was the question Rachel never answered.”
Marcus entered the library carrying a laptop.
“I may have something.”
Daniel gestured for him to continue.
“The greenhouse camera used an encrypted network. I couldn’t trace the
endpoint, but I recovered part of the login certificate.”
He turned the screen.
The account name read E_VALE88.
Daniel stared.
“Eleanor.”
“Maybe.”
A second file had downloaded before the connection terminated.
Video.
Marcus played it.
A woman appeared on-screen.
She was in her late fifties, with dark hair streaked silver.
Daniel recognized his own eyes.
“Hello, Daniel.”
His chest tightened.
“If you are watching this, Charles has finally told you who I am.”
Charles muttered, “Don’t listen.”
Daniel silenced him with a look.
The woman continued.
“I am Eleanor Vale Mercer. I am your mother.”
She leaned closer to the camera.
“And if Evelyn is standing beside you, ask her why she was the last
person seen with Rachel before Rachel’s car went off the bridge.”
Daniel slowly turned.
Evelyn’s face drained of color.
He looked at the woman who had just returned from the dead.
“Mom?”
Evelyn began to cry.
Daniel’s voice cracked.
“Were you with Rachel the night she died?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Rachel made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
Evelyn looked toward Lily.
“To let everyone believe she was dead.”
Daniel stared at her.
The room went silent.
“What did you just say?”
May you like
Evelyn whispered the impossible.
“Rachel survived.”
