Chapter 6 - Mercy House

Naomi listened to Lena’s recording twice.

Then she said, “Do exactly what she told you.”

Victor stood beside the truck outside North Vale while rain began to fall.

“You want witnesses.”

“I want redundancy.”

“Same thing with better billing.”

“Victor.”

Her voice sharpened.

“Do not drive to Mercy House with your brother and a rifle and call that a legal strategy.”

Adrian leaned against the truck.

“It’s been our family strategy for years.”

Naomi said, “I heard that.”

“You were supposed to.”

Victor ignored both of them.

“What can you give me?”

“Two independent attorneys, a licensed investigator, and a secure livestream to three off-site servers.”

“Police?”

“No.”

“Federal agents?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Reed stepped out of the truck.

“That should bother me.”

Victor looked at him.

“Does it?”

“At this point, less than it should.”

Naomi continued.

“I also have the preservation order. It was served electronically on Blackridge, the Marshal Service regional office, North Vale’s property custodian, and the contractor that owns Mercy House.”

Helen stared.

“You found the owner?”

“Paperwork is less romantic than gunfire, but it works.”

“Who owns it?”

“A nonprofit called Morning Star Family Services.”

Everyone went silent.

Victor said, “Sayer named the nonprofit after the relocation program.”

Helen answered, “Or the program after the nonprofit.”

Naomi said, “It was incorporated eleven years ago. Board members are mostly dead, resigned, or fictional. Current registered agent is a law firm that closed five years ago.”

Marcus stepped out from the building.

He had changed into an old coat he found in a maintenance room.

Victor watched him approach.

Naomi asked, “Is Marcus Vell with you?”

“Yes.”

“I need him on record.”

Marcus heard and shook his head.

Victor handed him the phone.

Marcus did not take it.

“My daughter.”

Naomi said through the speaker, “I know.”

Marcus stared.

“How?”

“Your name is in the files. So is hers.”

His face tightened.

“Where is she?”

“I’m not saying over an open connection.”

Marcus looked at Victor.

Naomi continued.

“But I have verified she attended school this morning under the same alias she has used for six years.”

Marcus closed his eyes.

“She’s alive.”

“As of forty minutes ago.”

His shoulders dropped.

Victor held the phone toward him.

“Now talk.”

Marcus took it.

For twelve minutes he gave Naomi a statement.

He described Sayer’s threats. The fabricated meeting. The pictures of his daughter. North Vale. Lena. Mercy House.

He did not excuse himself.

When Naomi asked why he had not come forward earlier, Marcus said, “Because I was afraid.”

Nothing more.

Victor respected that answer more than he expected.

When the call ended, Clara stepped out from the cargo compartment.

Victor frowned.

“I told you to stay inside.”

“I was inside for an hour.”

“Forty-three minutes.”

“That is basically an hour when you’re ten.”

Ethan appeared behind her.

“Naomi found my dad?”

Victor’s face changed.

“Not yet.”

Ethan looked down.

“We’re going to.”

The boy nodded without looking convinced.

Victor looked at Reed.

“Take them to Naomi.”

Clara’s head snapped up.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You promised not to lie. You didn’t promise to send me away.”

“I am not sending you away. I am putting you somewhere Sayer cannot reach while I go to Mercy House.”

“Mom might be there.”

“I know.”

“I should be there too.”

Victor crouched.

“You should meet your mother in a place where nobody is carrying a weapon.”

Clara’s eyes filled.

“What if she isn’t there?”

“Then I will tell you exactly what I find.”

“What if she is?”

Victor swallowed.

“Then I will tell her you are waiting.”

Clara looked at Adrian.

“Are you going?”

“Yes.”

“Marcus?”

Marcus nodded.

“Helen?”

Helen said, “Yes.”

Clara looked back at Victor.

“So everybody gets to go except me.”

“Everybody except you and Ethan has spent years helping create this disaster.”

Reed raised a hand.

“I object to being included.”

Victor looked at him.

“You chose corrections.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“Today it is close enough.”

Clara wiped her eyes.

“I’m still mad.”

“You are allowed.”

“I might stay mad.”

“I have experience with that.”

She hugged him hard.

Victor closed his eyes and held her.

“Bring Mom back.”

“I will try.”

“Not good enough.”

Victor pulled back.

Clara stared at him with Lena’s eyes.

He nodded.

“I will bring the truth back. Whatever it is.”

She accepted that.

Reed drove Clara and Ethan toward the meeting point Naomi had arranged.

Victor watched the truck disappear.

Adrian said, “You did the right thing.”

Victor turned.

“Do not ruin the moment.”

They took Marcus’s old sedan from behind North Vale.

Helen drove because she knew the roads around Greyhaven.

Victor sat in front. Adrian and Marcus sat in back with the evidence case.

No one spoke for ten miles.

Finally Victor said, “Adrian.”

“Yes.”

“Why did Sayer say you owe him?”

Adrian stared out the window.

“I killed one of his men.”

Victor waited.

“Which man?”

“The marshal who moved Lena from North Vale.”

Marcus looked at him.

“You found him?”

“Seven years ago.”

Victor turned in his seat.

“And?”

“He told me Lena was dead.”

Helen’s hands tightened on the wheel.

Victor asked, “Was he lying?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because after he said it, I found a photograph of Lena alive in his wallet. Dated three months earlier.”

Victor stared.

“What did you do?”

Adrian met his eyes.

“I lost control.”

Victor understood what that meant.

“Did he tell you where she was first?”

“No.”

Victor turned back toward the road.

“That is why you never told me.”

“Yes.”

“You killed the only lead.”

“Yes.”

Marcus said quietly, “Sayer used that too, didn’t he?”

Adrian nodded.

“He had the marshal’s death scene cleaned. Told me if I kept digging, he would reopen it and put Maria in the middle as an accessory because the gun had been stored at her house.”

Victor laughed bitterly.

“Every path ends with someone’s family.”

Helen said, “That was the point.”

Mercy House appeared shortly before noon.

It looked nothing like a prison.

A stone convent sat among tall pines beyond a low wall. White curtains hung in narrow windows. A chapel roof rose over the central courtyard.

The front gate stood open.

Victor hated that immediately.

“Too easy.”

Helen nodded.

“No visible security.”

Marcus said, “There never was.”

Adrian checked the side mirror.

“No vehicles behind us.”

They parked outside the wall.

Naomi’s investigator had placed a tiny camera inside Victor’s coat button before they separated. A second unit clipped to Helen’s bag. Their audio streamed to off-site servers.

Victor touched his collar.

“You hear me?”

Naomi’s voice came through a small earpiece.

“Unfortunately.”

“Good.”

“Remember: document, do not improvise.”

Victor looked at Adrian.

“That instruction was for you.”

“It was clearly for both of you,” Naomi said.

They entered through the gate.

A woman in a gray dress met them at the front door.

“Can I help you?”

Victor said, “I’m looking for Laura Benton.”

The woman’s expression did not change.

“No one by that name lives here.”

Helen stepped forward.

“Morning Star intake, approximately seven years ago.”

The woman looked at her.

For one second, fear appeared.

Then vanished.

“We are a private recovery residence.”

Victor showed her Lena’s file.

“This address is listed.”

She did not look down.

“I cannot discuss residents.”

“Then discuss Grant Sayer.”

The woman stepped back.

Adrian noticed movement behind a window.

“Victor.”

Two men appeared in the side corridor.

Not guards in uniform. Clean clothes. Earpieces.

Victor kept his hands visible.

Naomi whispered through his earpiece.

“Camera has them. Do not draw first.”

The woman said, “You need to leave.”

Marcus stepped into view.

Her face changed completely.

“Marcus?”

He stared at her.

“Sister Caroline.”

Victor looked between them.

The former nurse from Lena’s recording.

Caroline’s eyes filled.

“You are alive.”

Marcus laughed softly.

“So are you.”

She looked at Victor.

“You’re her husband.”

“Yes.”

Caroline’s gaze dropped to the file in his hand.

Then she looked toward the two men.

“Come inside.”

One man said, “Sister, no.”

Caroline turned.

“You do not give orders here.”

He reached for his jacket.

Adrian moved faster, catching the man’s wrist before the weapon cleared. Marcus shoved the second man into the wall. Victor took the first pistol and placed it on the floor.

No shots.

Naomi said in his ear, “That was dangerously close to improvising.”

Victor replied, “Document it.”

Caroline locked the front doors.

“Those are Sayer’s watchers. They rotate every week.”

Victor stared at her.

“Where is Lena?”

Caroline’s face softened.

“She left.”

Victor felt the room tilt.

“When?”

“Five years ago.”

“Where?”

“She would not tell me.”

Adrian cursed under his breath.

Victor stepped closer.

“Please.”

Caroline studied him.

“She said if you ever came, I was to give you something only after you asked about Clara.”

Victor’s voice broke.

“What did she know about Clara?”

Caroline smiled sadly.

“Everything she could learn without going near her.”

She walked to the chapel.

Behind the altar she opened a small wooden compartment and removed an envelope.

VICTOR was written across it in Lena’s hand.

Victor opened it.

Inside was a photograph of Clara at age five leaving school.

Behind it, Lena had written:

SAYER SENT THIS TO ME TO PROVE HE COULD REACH HER.

Under the photograph was a second note.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, HE FINALLY LOST CONTROL OF THE STORY.

ASK CAROLINE ABOUT THE LAKE.

Victor looked up.

“What lake?”

Caroline hesitated.

Then every phone in the room rang at once.

Victor’s.

Helen’s.

Adrian’s.

Marcus’s.

Even the wall phone beside the chapel door.

Naomi’s voice cut through Victor’s earpiece.

“Do not answer. Something just hit the network.”

The chapel speakers clicked on by themselves.

Sayer’s voice filled the room.

“Victor, I told you this was not about justice.”

A screen above the community room door flickered to life.

Judge Rowe appeared seated in a chair.

Alive.

Beside him stood a woman with dark hair streaked with gray.

Victor stopped breathing.

Clara’s eyes lived in her face.

Lena.

Sayer stepped into frame behind them.

“You wanted your wife,” he said.

Victor could not speak.

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Sayer smiled.

“Now decide which witness you want back.”