Chapter 5 - THE HUNT FOR CHARLES MERCERCharles Mercer never reached Wisconsin.
State police found his abandoned SUV forty miles north of Milwaukee.
Driver’s door open.
Phone smashed.
Blood on the steering wheel.
No body.
The FBI closed the highway exit within twenty minutes.
By afternoon, helicopters were searching wooded areas surrounding the vehicle.
Helena stood in a command trailer studying photographs displayed across several monitors.
Despite everything Charles had done, he was still her father.
Hatred did not erase thirty years of memories.
Birthday pancakes.
Summer vacations.
Learning to ride a bicycle.
His hand holding hers before walking down the aisle.
Human beings were inconvenient that way.
People could become monsters without erasing the years in which you had loved them.
Gabriel watched her silently.
“You’re allowed to care whether he’s alive.”
Helena looked at him.
“I don’t know if I do.”
“You don’t need to decide today.”
She almost smiled.
“You always sound like you have an answer.”
“I usually do.”
“And when you don’t?”
“I say less.”
For the first time since the warehouse, Helena laughed.
It lasted perhaps two seconds.
Gabriel nevertheless remembered the sound.
Agent Brooks entered.
“We found surveillance video.”
A gas station camera had captured Charles’s SUV leaving the highway.
Six minutes later, a black pickup followed.
The plate belonged to a landscaping company connected to Damian.
Helena stared at the screen.
“So Damian arranged this from custody?”
“Likely before he was arrested.”
Another agent entered carrying an evidence bag.
Inside was Charles’s broken phone.
“We recovered the memory chip.”
Hours later, technicians extracted several deleted messages.
The final one had been sent to an unknown number.
I HAVE ROSE’S ORIGINAL LEDGER. IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, IT GOES PUBLIC.
Gabriel leaned toward the screen.
“He was bargaining.”
Naomi nodded.
“But apparently someone didn’t believe him.”
Helena asked, “Did he really have it?”
Cynthia, who had joined them under federal protection, answered.
“Yes.”
Everyone turned.
“You said you didn’t know where it was,” Helena said.
“I didn’t.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Cynthia looked ashamed.
“I knew he found it three years ago.”
“And you said nothing?”
“Helena—”
“Three years?”
“He was afraid.”
“Of Damian?”
“Of everyone.”
Helena stood.
“My grandmother left evidence proving people were stealing millions, possibly killing people, and Dad hid it?”
“He thought he could use it as protection.”
“Protection?”
Helena’s voice rose.
“He let me marry the man who killed her.”
Cynthia cried.
“I know.”
“No, Mom, you don’t get to say that.”
Gabriel quietly stepped away.
Some confrontations required witnesses.
Others required privacy.
But Cynthia looked at him.
“Please stay.”
Perhaps she needed someone who would not soften what came next.
Cynthia turned toward Helena.
“Your father found the ledger after you married Damian.”
“Then why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because by then Damian knew about Charles’s involvement.”
Helena shook her head.
“No.”
“Damian had photographs. Bank transfers. Recordings.”
“So Dad traded me for silence.”
Cynthia could not answer.
That was answer enough.
Helena walked outside.
Gabriel followed several minutes later.
She stood beneath a gray Wisconsin sky beside a line of pine trees.
“You were right.”
“About what?”
“Evidence matters.”
She wiped tears from her cheeks.
“Because without evidence, people rewrite your life for you.”
Gabriel stood beside her.
“My father will say he protected the company.”
“Yes.”
“Damian will say I’m unstable.”
“Yes.”
“My mother will say she was scared.”
“Yes.”
Helena looked at him.
“And what will you say?”
“That none of those explanations changes what happened.”
Helena studied his face.
“Why are you helping me?”
Gabriel looked toward the trees.
Because twenty-one years earlier, his younger sister had asked someone for help.
And no one came.
He rarely told that story.
But Helena deserved the truth.
“My sister was nineteen.”
Helena said nothing.
“She dated a man who hurt her.”
Gabriel kept looking forward.
“My family told her to stop causing trouble.”
Helena’s expression softened.
“What happened?”
“She disappeared.”
A long silence.
“Did you find her?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“The police decided she ran away.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
Helena touched his arm.
Not out of fear this time.
Simply human contact.
“I’m sorry.”
Gabriel nodded once.
A shout came from behind them.
Agent Brooks.
“We found something.”
A tracking dog had followed Charles’s scent nearly a mile into the woods.
They found him inside an abandoned hunting shed.
Alive.
Barely.
His hands were bound.
His face was badly bruised.
A note was pinned to his jacket.
BRING THE LEDGER.
Charles regained consciousness four hours later at a hospital in Milwaukee.
Helena stood outside his room.
For several minutes, she could not make herself enter.
Gabriel waited.
Eventually she opened the door.
Her father looked smaller.
Not powerful.
Not senatorial.
Just old.
“Helena.”
His voice cracked.
She stood at the foot of the bed.
“Where is the ledger?”
Charles closed his eyes.
“Hello to you too.”
“My grandmother died because of it.”
Silence.
“My marriage happened because of it.”
His eyes opened.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
Charles looked at Gabriel.
“Leave.”
Gabriel didn’t move.
Helena said, “He stays.”
Charles laughed weakly.
“You replace one dangerous man with another?”
Gabriel’s face didn’t change.
Helena’s did.
“Gabriel has never hit me.”
Charles looked away.
The sentence landed harder than shouting could have.
“Where is the ledger?”
Charles finally whispered:
“Union Station.”
Naomi stepped closer.
“Where?”
“Locker 316.”
“Key?”
Charles looked at Helena.
“In Rose’s necklace.”
Helena touched her throat instinctively.
She had worn her grandmother’s pendant for years.
Damian had once tried to persuade her to sell it.
Now she understood why.
Charles whispered:
“I never found the key.”
Gabriel examined Helena’s pendant.
A small antique silver rose.
He twisted the central petal.
A tiny compartment opened.
Inside was a brass key.
Helena stared.
Charles began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him.
“For which part?”
He had no answer.
That evening, federal agents entered Union Station.
Locker 316 contained a black leather ledger.
A flash drive.
And one photograph.
Gabriel picked it up.
A younger Damian Cross stood beside Charles Mercer and Rose Mercer.
There was a fourth person.
Gabriel stared.
His face changed.
Helena noticed.
“You know him?”
Gabriel did.
May you like
The fourth man was his father.
And suddenly this case was connected to Gabriel’s family too.
Related Stories
