CHAPTER 23 THE WOMAN FROM MILE MARKER FORTY-ONE
They reached the hospital in twenty minutes.
The unidentified man’s room was empty.
Two federal agents lay unconscious in the hallway.
The window had been opened.
The man was gone.
On the hospital bed rested a silver hawk pin and a handwritten message:
HE LIED ABOUT THE WOMAN.
Rebecca called for a full lockdown.
Adrian stood at the window.
“Elena, this is designed to turn us against one another.”
“Then stop giving it material.”
A nurse approached them.
“There is a woman asking for Ms. Mercer.”
“What woman?”
“She says her name is Miriam Cole.”
Elena found Miriam in the chapel.
She was in her early fifties, with short dark hair and a scar extending from her ear to the base of her neck.
Daniel ran toward her.
Miriam held him tightly.
“I told you to stay inside the center.”
“It burned.”
“I know.”
She looked at Elena.
“You opened the room.”
“You left my father’s key?”
“No. Samuel did.”
“He died years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Then how did the key get inside a toy Adrian purchased three months ago?”
Miriam’s eyes moved toward Adrian.
“He did not purchase that toy.”
Adrian frowned.
“I ordered it through a craftsman in Savannah.”
“The craftsman died nine years ago.”
Silence settled over the chapel.
Miriam took Samuel’s ring from Daniel’s neck.
“Your father gave me this the night of the crash.”
“What happened that night?” Elena asked.
“Samuel discovered Thomas had been using the Mercer charitable trust to hide children connected to witnesses, informants, and families threatened by powerful officials.”
“Hide them from whom?”
“Sometimes from criminals. Sometimes from the government. Eventually, from the people running the trust itself.”
Rebecca stepped closer.
“My mother was involved?”
“She helped Samuel move one infant before Captain Hale could take her.”
Rebecca’s jaw tightened.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“Who was the child?”
Miriam looked at Elena.
“The child who was supposed to inherit the Mercer Trust.”
Elena shook her head.
“Adrian and I were Samuel’s only children.”
“No.”
Miriam removed a photograph from her coat.
Samuel stood beside a hospital bed.
A young woman held a newborn.
Thomas Whitmore stood in the doorway.
On the back, Samuel had written:
Iris Mercer — protect her from both families.
Adrian stared at the image.
“Iris?”
Miriam placed the photograph in Elena’s hands.
“Samuel had another daughter.”
Elena looked at the date.
It was taken twenty-eight years earlier.
“Where is she now?”
Miriam’s expression became guarded.
“She grew up close enough to watch your family, but far enough to survive it.”
Rebecca stepped back.
“No.”
Miriam turned to her.
“Your mother did not disappear because she was ill.”
Rebecca’s breathing changed.
“She disappeared because she brought Iris home.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I would remember a baby.”
“You do remember.”
Miriam removed the hospital bracelet Daniel had carried.
“You simply remember her by another name.”
Rebecca stared at the bracelet.
Then at Elena.
“My mother told me the baby died.”
Miriam’s voice softened.
“She did not die.”
“Then where is she?”
Miriam looked toward the chapel entrance.
A woman stood there wearing a federal agent’s badge.
Rebecca recognized her.
It was the director of her own unit.
May you like
Miriam whispered:
“There.”
