Chapter 5 - NORTH LIGHT
The intruder never reached the house.
Security found a motorcycle abandoned near the east wall and fresh tracks disappearing into the woods.
Nothing else.
Grant ordered Hannah and Lucy moved to the secure guest floor.
Hannah objected.
"I don't want my daughter living behind armed doors."
"Neither do I."
"Then let us leave."
Grant turned toward her voice.
"The note proves they know what Lucy saw. Leaving makes you easier to reach."
Hannah hated the answer because it was true.
Daniel returned with North Light's financial records.
The anonymous trust funding Hale was not anonymous anymore.
A court filing from two years earlier had exposed one beneficiary.
Malcolm Mercer.
Grant felt no surprise.
"How much?"
"Six million over five years."
"For research?"
"Officially."
Voss found something worse.
North Light had paid a private rehabilitation center in Connecticut every month since the week after Pier 17.
Saint Arden Pediatric Recovery.
Grant frowned.
"Pediatric?"
Daniel went silent.
Grant heard it.
"Say it."
"The payments are labeled E.M. long-term neurological care."
Two initials.
E.M.
Emma Mercer.
Grant's knees nearly failed.
"No."
Daniel moved toward him.
Grant shoved him away.
"No. I buried her."
He remembered a small white coffin he had touched with both hands because he could not see it.
He remembered asking to hold his daughter one last time.
Malcolm had said the injuries were too severe.
Grant's breathing turned rough.
Hannah stood frozen near the door.
Voss said carefully, "Initials prove nothing."
Grant picked up his cane.
"We're going."
Daniel blocked the doorway.
"Not blind and angry."
"Move."
"Grant—"
"Move."
Daniel did.
They reached Saint Arden before sunset.
The director denied having any patient named Emma Mercer.
Then Grant asked for records billed to North Light.
The woman's face changed.
"Those are sealed."
"By whom?"
She looked at Daniel.
"A Mercer family guardian."
Grant's voice went quiet.
"Name."
May you like
The director swallowed.
"Malcolm Mercer."
