Chapter 14 - Blood Does Not Buy a Home
The drafting pencil had disappeared from my father’s desk seventeen years earlier.
I remembered it because it was ridiculous.
Bright yellow.
Chewed near the eraser.
Stamped with the name of a construction company that had gone bankrupt before I graduated high school.
My father used expensive drafting instruments for professional drawings, but he used that cheap pencil for notes because, according to him, “Nobody steals ugly tools.”
Someone had stolen it.
Or found it.
Either possibility terrified me.
The FBI closed the floor.
Owen Pike vanished before agents reached his apartment.
His car was discovered near O’Hare with the keys inside.
By noon, we knew he had boarded no commercial flight.
By three, another problem arrived.
A lawyer named Samantha Vale entered Danielle’s office carrying a petition filed under Vanessa Vance’s name.
She was thirty-five, sharply dressed, and far too pleased with herself.
“My client intends to challenge the Mercer adoption.”
Danielle laughed.
Not politely.
“Your client abandoned her child in a hospital using a fraudulent identity while fleeing a federal investigation.”
“My client claims coercion.”
“Your client wasn’t present at the adoption hearing.”
“That is precisely the issue.”
I remained silent.
Vale turned toward me.
“Ms. Mercer, biological parentage remains constitutionally protected.”
“Not indefinitely.”
Danielle opened the petition.
Her expression changed.
“This signature is notarized.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Geneva.”
Grayson, who had been standing near the window, immediately looked up.
“Switzerland?”
Vale smiled.
“My client is outside your jurisdiction.”
That made no sense.
Vanessa had called me from Chicago less than forty-eight hours earlier.
Unless someone had duplicated her voice.
Or the Swiss filing was fraudulent.
“What does Vanessa want?” I asked.
“Twenty million dollars.”
There it was.
Not Arthur.
Money.
“In exchange for what?”
“She will permanently withdraw all parental claims and surrender certain information concerning Northstar.”
Danielle closed the folder.
“Get out.”
Vale blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“My client is offering your client security.”
“No,” I said.
Both lawyers looked at me.
I stood.
“Arthur already has security.”
Vale’s smile disappeared.
“He has a finalized adoption decree.”
“Which can be attacked.”
“People can attack anything.”
I walked toward her.
“They can attack bank accounts. Reputations. Companies. Families.”
I stopped two feet away.
“But blood does not buy a home.”
Vale studied me carefully.
“You are making a mistake.”
“Tell Vanessa that if she wants to speak to me, she can do it in front of federal agents.”
Vale’s face tightened.
“I don’t take messages.”
“You just did.”
After she left, Grayson immediately called his office.
“Her firm needs surveillance.”
Danielle was rereading the petition.
“This is too polished.”
“What do you mean?”
“If Vanessa wanted money, she could threaten us directly. Why hire a Chicago attorney and file something guaranteed to attract federal attention?”
“Unless she didn’t.”
Danielle pointed to the notary block.
“The notarization was performed yesterday.”
Grayson checked his phone.
“No record of Vanessa entering Switzerland.”
“Could be forged.”
“Probably is.”
I looked at the signature.
“Then who benefits?”
Danielle answered immediately.
“Someone who wants you distracted.”
My phone rang.
The hospital.
My entire body went rigid.
Arthur had a cardiac follow-up scheduled that afternoon.
Reese had gone with Martha and our security driver.
I answered.
“Ms. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“This is Dr. Kincaid.”
“What happened?”
“Arthur is fine.”
I breathed again.
“But someone called our administrative desk pretending to be you.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did they ask?”
“For copies of Arthur’s complete surgical file.”
“Did you send anything?”
“No. The employee became suspicious.”
Grayson was already moving toward the door.
“Did they leave a number?”
“Yes.”
The number belonged to a legal research office downtown.
Danielle searched the company.
Her eyes narrowed.
“It’s owned by Northstar.”
The attacks were tightening.
Not random anymore.
Banking records.
Adoption records.
Medical records.
My family.
That evening, I walked through the house checking every window myself.
Reese found me in Arthur’s room.
“You always tell me not to worry about things I can’t control,” she said.
“I know.”
“You’re doing the opposite.”
I almost smiled.
She sat beside me.
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
I wrapped an arm around her.
Then she said something I would remember for years.
“Being scared doesn’t mean we give them the house.”
I looked at my daughter.
“No.”
She rested her head against my shoulder.
“It means we lock the doors and keep living in it.”
Downstairs, my phone buzzed.
A message from Grayson.
WE FOUND OWEN PIKE.
I called immediately.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
There was a pause.
“Inside an abandoned Northstar warehouse.”
“And?”
“He had your father’s drafting case.”
My heart stopped.
Grayson continued.
“There was something else inside.”
“What?”
“A map.”
“To M-A-17?”
“No.”
May you like
His voice lowered.
“To the place your father died.”
