Chương 7
She looked uncomfortable.
“Because he asked me not to.”
Daniel stared at her.
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
“Everyone keeps saying my father asked them to do things.”
The woman looked down.
“He was afraid of what would happen if he stopped controlling the story.”
Daniel put the paper in his pocket.
“That doesn’t sound like fear.”
“What does it sound like?”
He thought about it.
“Like guilt.”
The receptionist did not disagree.
That bothered him.
Daniel drove back toward the hotel where he planned to stay for the night.
He called Rachel before he reached it.
She answered on the second ring.
“Are you okay?”
The question almost made him pull over.
Because it was the same question she had asked that morning.
But now he understood why she asked it.
“No,” he said.
The honesty surprised both of them.
Rachel was quiet.
“What happened?”
Daniel gripped the steering wheel.
“My dad didn’t tell us the truth.”
“That’s a big statement.”
“I found a notebook.”
“Daniel.”
“I know.”
He hated how quickly she said his name.
Not because she was annoyed.
Because she was worried.
“I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
Rachel breathed softly.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you safe?”
The question made him pause.
He looked around.
A gas station.
A row of parked cars.
People walking inside with bags of chips and drinks.
A normal evening.
“I think so.”
“Think?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
He knew she heard the uncertainty.
“Come home,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because he needed answers.
Because he was afraid the answers would hurt.
Because after seven years of hating his father, the possibility that he had been wrong felt almost like losing him again.
“I don’t know yet.”
Rachel did not argue.
That was one of the things he loved about her.
She knew when pushing would only make him disappear.
“Just promise me something.”
“What?”
“Don’t become him.”
Daniel looked at the road ahead.
The words hit harder than anything else that day.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t decide everyone else is better off without the truth.”
He swallowed.
“I won’t.”
But he was not sure if he believed himself.
That night, Daniel sat alone in a cheap hotel room with the notebook open beside him.
He searched the name Marcus Hale.
There were several people with the same name.
None looked familiar.
He searched deeper.
Nothing.
No obvious connection.
No easy answer.
He almost felt relieved.
A simple answer would have been too easy.
Then his phone received a message from an unknown number.
Daniel looked at the screen.
The message contained only one sentence.
“Your father did not disappear from your life because he stopped caring about you.”
Daniel stared at it.
A second message appeared.
“He disappeared because he found out what your mother had done.”
He stood so quickly the chair behind him fell over.
For several moments, he did not move.
Then the phone rang.
Unknown number.
Daniel watched it vibrate.
He knew he should not answer.
Every reasonable instinct told him that.
But reasonable instincts had not helped him understand his father for seven years.
He pressed accept.
“Hello?”
No one spoke.
Only breathing.
Then a voice said his name.
Not angrily.
Not threateningly.
Almost sadly.
“Daniel Mercer.”
His grip tightened around the phone.
“Who is this?”
A pause.
“My name is Marcus Hale.”
Daniel looked at the notebook.
The name on the paper.
The same name.
“I think you deserve to know why your father ran.”
The line went quiet for a moment.
“And I think you deserve to know why he never came back.”
Marcus Hale did not speak immediately.
Daniel could hear faint sounds behind him.
A television playing somewhere.
A car passing.
A dog barking in the distance.
Normal sounds.
That almost made the conversation harder to believe.
A stranger was about to explain the reason his father abandoned him, and that stranger sounded like someone sitting in his own kitchen after a long day.
Not like someone holding a secret.
Not like someone who had changed Daniel’s entire understanding of his life.
“Are you still there?” Marcus asked.
Daniel looked at the fallen chair on the floor.
“Yes.”
“I know this is not how you wanted to find out.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“You have no idea what I wanted.”
“No.”
The honesty caught him off guard.
Marcus did not pretend.
That was different.
“Who are you?” Daniel asked.
“I was your father’s attorney.”
Daniel frowned.
“My father had an attorney?”
“Yes.”
“He never mentioned one.”
“That was intentional.”
Daniel walked toward the window.
The parking lot lights outside flickered.
“He didn’t mention a lot of things.”
“No.”
Marcus sounded tired.
“Thomas was not good at explaining himself.”
“That’s a polite way to say it.”
“It is.”
Daniel waited.
He wanted Marcus to defend his father.
He wanted him to say something that would make him angry.
Instead, Marcus only sounded like someone describing a difficult person he had known for a long time.
“Tell me what my mother did,” Daniel said.
The silence afterward was longer.
When Marcus finally answered, his voice was lower.
“Your mother did not do what Thomas believed she did.”
Daniel stopped.
“What?”
“She made choices.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“I know.”
Daniel gripped the phone.
“Then start talking.”
Marcus exhaled.
“Your father found financial records.”
“What kind of records?”
“Payments.”
“To who?”
“People connected to a company called Northbridge Development.”
Daniel waited.
The name meant nothing.
“Your mother worked there?”
“No.”
“Then why would she be connected?”
“She wasn’t.”
The answer confused him.
“Then why are you bringing it up?”
“Because your father thought she was.”
Daniel stared at the wall.
The conversation felt like walking through a house in the dark.
Every door opened to another hallway.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father was wrong about some things.”
Daniel felt his anger return.
“Convenient.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive him.”
May you like
“Good.”
“I’m telling you the truth because someone needs to.”
