Chapter 18 - The Woman Who Disappeared
For all the damage Allison had caused me, I never wanted to see her hurt.
That distinction mattered.
Revenge had consumed too many people already.
By midnight, police had sealed the parking structure.
The blood belonged to Allison.
Not much.
Enough to suggest a head injury.
Her phone was found crushed beneath another vehicle.
The encrypted drive was gone.
Marcus and I stood behind the police barrier.
“Kidnapping?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
“Charles?”
“No evidence yet.”
Evan arrived downstairs.
When he saw the car, his face tightened.
“My father wouldn’t do this.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You sure?”
“No.”
That answer was more credible than certainty.
At one fifteen, detectives found surveillance footage.
Allison entered the garage alone.
Five minutes later, a black SUV arrived.
Two men approached her.
There was an argument.
One grabbed her arm.
Allison struck him with her purse.
The second man shoved her against the car.
Her head hit the steering wheel.
Then they dragged her into the SUV.
Marcus paused the footage.
“License plate.”
Fake.
But the men had made one mistake.
The SUV carried a parking permit sticker.
A private marina.
Sarah traced it by sunrise.
Lake Point Harbor.
At six forty, federal agents raided a rented storage building near the marina.
Allison was found alive.
Terrified.
Bruised.
Furious.
Very much Allison.
I saw her later that morning at the hospital.
“You look terrible,” she muttered.
I almost smiled.
“You were kidnapped eight hours ago and somehow you’re still insulting people.”
“It keeps me centered.”
Her left temple was bandaged.
An agent stood outside.
“Who took the drive?” I asked.
“Men working for someone named Keller.”
“Charles?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
She winced while sitting up.
“I heard them arguing. One said Whitmore wanted the drive delivered unopened. The other said Keller was changing the deal.”
“Who is Keller?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked scared.
Actually scared.
That mattered.
“What’s on the drive, Allison?”
“Daniel’s ledger.”
“More specifically.”
She hesitated.
“Payments made by Richard Mercer before his death.”
“To Charles?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“One payment was routed through an account belonging to Arthur Vance.”
My stomach dropped.
“Arthur?”
“Four point eight million dollars.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“Nineteen ninety-nine.”
Arthur had told me he regretted staying silent.
He had never told me he was paid.
I left the hospital and called him immediately.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Marcus checked Arthur’s home security.
“Front door is open.”
Twenty minutes later, police entered.
Arthur was gone.
His bedroom had not been disturbed.
No signs of forced entry.
His car was missing.
On the kitchen table was a handwritten note addressed to me.
Rebecca, I should have told you everything. Charles was not the only person Richard Mercer betrayed. Neither was I. Do not trust the ledger without understanding why it exists. I am going to finish what I should have finished twenty-seven years ago.
Below the message was an address.
An abandoned freight terminal along the Calumet River.
Evan recognized it immediately.
“The original Mercer terminal.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No way we let you go there.”
“We call police.”
“We already are.”
Then Evan’s phone rang.
Charles.
He answered on speaker.
His father’s voice was shaking with rage.
“Where is Arthur?”
Evan frowned.
“We thought he was with you.”
“He stole something from me.”
“What?”
“The truth.”
The line went dead.
Suddenly the pieces shifted.
Arthur wasn’t hiding from Charles.
He had gone after him.
And the old freight terminal wasn’t merely part of Mercer history.
According to archived property records Sarah pulled up minutes later, it was where Richard Mercer, Charles Whitmore, and Arthur Vance had signed the original partnership documents almost thirty years earlier.
Whatever began there had poisoned two generations.
Now three old men’s secrets were pulling all of us back to the same place.
Marcus checked his weapon and looked at me.
“Police first.”
I nodded.
No heroics.
No revenge.
No repeating the mistakes of the men who built their lives around pride.
But as the convoy headed south through the waking city, I couldn’t shake one thought.
May you like
Daniel’s corruption had been only the final chapter of something much older.
And we were about to discover how the Mercer empire had really been built.
