Chương 8
He walked toward the desk.
Something caught his eye.
A scratch near the bottom drawer.
Fresh.
He crouched down.
“What is it?”
He did not answer.
The drawer was empty except for dust.
Except for one thing.
A small metal key.
Daniel picked it up.
Mara moved closer.
“Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s becoming your favorite answer.”
He turned the key over.
There was a number engraved on it.
417.
Not a date.
Not a room number he recognized.
A storage key, maybe.
Or something else.
His phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
Daniel and Mara looked at each other.
Neither spoke.
He answered.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then a man spoke.
Older.
Calm.
The same voice Luis had described.
“Daniel Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“You have the key.”
Daniel tightened his grip.
“Who is this?”
“You need to stop looking for what happened to your father.”
Mara stepped closer.
Daniel looked at the broken office door.
“Why?”
The man paused.
“Because your father was not hiding from you.”
The line went quiet for a moment.
Then the man said something that made Daniel’s hand go cold around the phone.
“He was hiding you from them.”
The call ended.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Mara’s face had changed.
“What did he say?”
Daniel looked down at the key in his hand.
For fourteen years, he had believed his father’s disappearance was the thing that destroyed their family.
Now, standing in the office where Richard Mercer had vanished from their lives, Daniel had the first evidence that maybe the disappearance had been an attempt to protect something.
Or someone.
His phone buzzed again.
A message appeared from the same unknown number.
Attached was a photograph.
Daniel opened it.
It showed the front entrance of his repair shop.
Taken that afternoon.
From across the street.
Below the image was one sentence.
“They know you found the key.”
Daniel did not show Mara the photograph immediately.
He turned the phone face down on the desk and kept his hand over it as if that could stop the image from existing.
Mara watched him for several seconds.
“What?”
Daniel looked at her.
“What makes you think something is wrong?”
Her expression changed from suspicion to irritation.
“Because you have the same face you had when Dad called you a disappointment.”
The words landed harder than he expected.
He looked away.
“That was a long time ago.”
“No.”
Mara stepped closer.
“That was the face you made every time something hurt and you decided nobody was allowed to know.”
Daniel slipped the phone into his pocket.
“The person who called knows about the key.”
Mara’s anger disappeared.
“What key?”
He opened his hand.
The small piece of metal rested in his palm.
Her eyes moved to the number engraved on it.
“Four seventeen.”
“You recognize it?”
“No.”
But she said it too quickly.
Daniel noticed.
“You do.”
Mara looked toward their father’s desk.
“I recognize the number.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“It’s just something Dad used to write down.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
Daniel waited.
Mara walked to the desk and touched the edge of the wood.
“When we were kids, he kept a notebook.”
“What kind of notebook?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said he kept one.”
“I said he kept one.”
She looked at him.
“I never saw inside it.”
Daniel almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because suddenly everyone in his family seemed to have spent years standing near locked doors.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Mara pulled her hand away from the desk.
“Because you didn’t ask.”
“That’s convenient.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“That’s the truth.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You spent fourteen years knowing there were things I didn’t know.”
“I spent fourteen years trying to figure out what happened.”
“And you never thought maybe I deserved to know?”
Mara’s jaw tightened.
“You left.”
The sentence was quiet.
That made it worse.
Daniel looked down.
“I was nineteen.”
“You were twenty-four.”
He stopped.
Mara shook her head.
“See?”
“What?”
“You remember it the way you need to remember it.”
The accusation bothered him because part of him knew she was right.
He remembered leaving.
He remembered the suitcase.
He remembered his mother crying in the kitchen.
He remembered his father standing near the garage, saying nothing.
But he did not remember the exact moment he decided never to come back.
Maybe because there had not been one.
Maybe because it had happened slowly.
One missed holiday.
One unanswered call.
One year becoming another.
Daniel looked around the office.
“Why now?”
Mara looked at him.
“What?”
“Why are these things happening now?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She walked past him toward the hallway.
“That’s why we need to find out.”
Daniel followed.
The house felt different with two people inside it.
When he was younger, every room had felt like it belonged to his father.
The furniture.
The photographs.
The silence.
Now it felt abandoned.
Not empty.
Abandoned.
Mara stopped near the stairs.
“There’s something else.”
Daniel waited.
“Before you say anything, I know how it sounds.”
“That usually means it sounds bad.”
“It does.”
She looked uncomfortable.
“Someone came here three weeks ago.”
Daniel stared at her.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You let someone into the house?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how did they get in?”
Mara hesitated.
“I found a note.”
Daniel felt the old frustration return.
“A note.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Inside Dad’s office.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know if it mattered.”
Daniel laughed once.
“Mara.”
“I know.”
She looked embarrassed.
“I know how stupid that sounds.”
“What did it say?”
She walked back into the office and opened a drawer beneath the desk.
From inside, she pulled a folded piece of paper.
Daniel did not touch it.
“Read it.”
Mara handed it over.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
The message was short.
May you like
I KNOW WHAT YOU FOUND.
Daniel looked up.
