Chapter 11 - FILE SIX
The words on Greg’s hidden business card did not mean anything until Bell remembered the flash drive in Erin’s backpack.
Forty-seven files.
Six videos.
She called the forensic analyst at 2:26 a.m.
“Open video six.”
The analyst hesitated.
“It’s encrypted.”
“With what?”
“Password-protected container.”
“Can you crack it?”
“Probably.”
“How long?”
Bell rubbed both hands over her face.
“Do it now.”
I was still upstairs with Leo.
He had been returned to bed after the roof incident, cleaned, reconnected to IV fluids, and examined from head to toe.
He had two scraped knees and a bruised shoulder.
His surgical wound had not reopened.
His heart rate stayed elevated for almost an hour.
Rebecca sat in the chair beside him with one hand wrapped around his ankle beneath the blanket, as though she needed physical proof he was still there.
Leo did not sleep.
Neither did she.
At 3:10, Erin returned from surgery.
Her arm was repaired.
Her ankle had been stabilized.
She was moved to a secure room two floors below Leo.
Once she was awake enough to understand what had happened on the roof, she tried to climb out of bed.
I stopped her at the doorway.
“He’s safe.”
“Nolan took him.”
“And Leo got away.”
“I need to see him.”
“You will.”
“Now.”
“Erin, you just had surgery.”
“He was taken because of me.”
“No.”
She stared at me.
I heard her own words to Leo from an hour earlier.
“What Nolan did was Nolan’s choice.”
She closed her eyes.
It hurt her to hear the logic turned back toward her.
“I should have left sooner.”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes opened sharply.
I did not soften it with a lie.
“You probably wish you had.”
“But wishing you had recognized danger sooner does not make you responsible for what dangerous people chose to do.”
She looked at the floor.
“I kept thinking I needed enough evidence.”
“Enough for what?”
“For everybody to believe me the first time.”
That answer explained nearly everything.
Erin had not been gathering evidence because she wanted revenge.
She had been gathering it because Greg had spent years teaching people to distrust any accusation made against him.
“He was always reasonable after,” she said.
“After what?”
“After he scared us.”
“He’d make breakfast.”
“He’d fix something around the house.”
“He’d tell Leo he loved him.”
“He’d apologize without saying what he was apologizing for.”
“Then if I brought up what happened, he’d ask why I was trying to ruin a good morning.”
She stared at her hands.
“By the end, I had photographs of injuries, recordings, dates, copies of school notes, everything.”
“And still?”
“I still thought maybe a judge would call it a difficult marriage.”
I pulled a chair closer.
“What is File Six?”
Her face changed.
“You found it?”
“Greg wrote something about it.”
“Did anyone open it?”
“Not yet.”
Erin looked toward the closed door.
“I encrypted it because Nolan searched my phone once.”
“What’s the password?”
She almost smiled.
“Dragon Road.”
The alley behind the library.
The answer to the question Greg had failed when pretending to be Erin by text.
Bell was in the room five minutes later.
The analyst opened File Six with the password.
The video had been recorded six weeks earlier.
The camera angle was low and partly blocked, as though a phone had been placed behind books on a shelf.
We saw the Mercer kitchen.
Greg sat at the table.
Nolan Pierce stood by the sink in uniform.
A red ledger lay open between them.
The same ledger Nolan later stole from Marissa.
The audio was clear.
Greg sounded angry.
“You said that Hale thing was buried.”
Pierce answered, “It was until Erin started calling people.”
Greg leaned back.
“She doesn’t know about Hale.”
“She talked to his mother.”
My skin prickled.
“Hale?” Bell asked.
Erin nodded.
“Mason Hale.”
“Who is he?”
“A boy Greg lived with before he met me.”
“How old?”
“Sixteen now.”
“How old when Greg lived with him?”
“Eleven or twelve.”
The video continued.
Greg said, “Mason lied then and he’ll lie now.”
Pierce answered, “Doesn’t matter if the stories line up.”
Greg stared at him.
“What stories?”
“The shed.”
The room went cold.
Erin closed her eyes.
On the video, Greg lowered his voice.
“You told me his mother never filed.”
“She didn’t.”
“The school did.”
“And?”
“I handled it.”
Greg laughed.
“Then handle Erin.”
Pierce slammed one hand on the counter.
“I am not disappearing your wife because you can’t control your house.”
Greg’s expression changed.
“I didn’t say disappear.”
“No, you just say things like ‘make the problem stop’ and wait for somebody else to become the bad guy.”
There it was.
Not one mastermind.
Not one victim and one helper.
Two men who had spent years feeding each other permission.
One hurt people.
The other made consequences disappear.
Then Greg pointed at the ledger.
“You think she finds out what those numbers mean and only I go down?”
Pierce said nothing.
Greg leaned closer.
“You took your share.”
Pierce’s face hardened.
“For moving parts.”
“For looking the other way.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
“It isn’t.”
Greg smiled.
“That distinction gonna keep you warm in prison?”
The video ended twenty seconds later when footsteps approached the camera.
No one spoke in Erin’s hospital room.
Bell was the first.
“What were the numbers?”
Erin shook her head.
“I didn’t know at first.”
“What did you learn?”
“Greg repaired boats off the books.”
“We know that.”
“But some repairs were fake.”
“How?”
“Boat owners reported expensive marine electronics stolen.”
“Insurance paid replacements.”
“Greg would install the replacements, then the original units showed up on other boats or were sold through cash buyers.”
“And Pierce?”
“He took reports.”
Bell’s face changed.
“He controlled the theft reports.”
Erin nodded.
“He could make serial numbers disappear or write them down wrong.”
“How much money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Enough to kidnap you?”
Erin stared at her blanket.
“Enough for Nolan to think my leaving Greg could expose him.”
Bell replayed the video.
This time she paused on the red ledger.
Several lines were visible.
Dates.
Initials.
Dollar amounts.
Boat names.
The state police financial-crimes unit was called before sunrise.
But the criminal scheme was not what disturbed me most.
It was the name Mason Hale.
A boy before Leo.
Another child.
Another shed.
Another allegation Pierce had “handled.”
At 6:40 a.m., Bell found an archived county incident report from four years earlier.
A middle-school counselor had reported suspected physical abuse involving Mason Hale.
The responding deputy was Nolan Pierce.
His report said the marks on Mason’s arm were consistent with roughhousing and that the child had admitted “embellishing conflict at home.”
The case was closed within forty-eight hours.
There was no CPS referral attached.
There should have been.
Bell called the school.
The counselor still worked there.
She remembered Mason immediately.
“He never admitted he lied,” she told Bell.
“That is not what happened.”
Bell put the call on speaker in a conference room while Dana and I listened.
“What did happen?”
“Mason got scared when Deputy Pierce told him his mother could lose custody if he made false allegations.”
“Did Pierce say that in front of you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you document it?”
“I sent an email to my principal.”
“Do you still have it?”
A pause.
“I might.”
“Please don’t delete anything.”
“I won’t.”
“Do you know where Mason is now?”
“His mother moved to Washington.”
“Do you have contact information?”
“Old information.”
“Send it.”
Dana stared at the table after the call ended.
“We almost always ask why nobody stopped it sooner.”
I looked at her.
She continued.
“Then you find the person who tried.”
“The counselor tried.”
“His mother probably tried.”
“Erin tried.”
“Leo tried.”
“And every time, somebody with more authority decided discomfort was easier than action.”
At 8:05 a.m., Leo woke and asked for cereal.
That simple request made me absurdly happy.
Sarah brought him two boxes and let him mix them.
He ate half.
Then he asked why two police officers were still outside his door.
“Because Pierce is in custody, but we’re being careful,” I said.
“Is Mom okay?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“Can I see her later?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Then he asked a question none of us expected.
“Did you find Mason?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“You know Mason?”
Leo stirred cereal around the bowl.
“Mom talked to him on the phone once.”
“What did he say?” Dana asked.
“Not to let Greg make me think I started it.”
The room went still.
“When was that?”
“Last month.”
“Did Greg know?”
“I don’t think so.”
Leo looked up.
“Mom made me promise not to tell because Mason was scared too.”
The first half of the story had been about proving Leo was telling the truth.
The second half was becoming something worse.
We were learning how many people already knew what Greg Mercer was capable of.
At 9:11 a.m., Bell received a call from Washington State Patrol.
They had located Mason Hale.
He was seventeen, not sixteen.
He was safe.
He agreed to speak with investigators.
But when Bell told him Greg had been arrested, Mason did not sound relieved.
May you like
According to Bell, he asked only one question.
“Did you arrest the deputy too?”
