Chapter 17 - WHAT VANESSA WANTED
The shot struck a water pipe above the loading bay. Police pulled Ruth out through a side door. She had a cut over one eyebrow, but she was breathing and furious.
“That woman,” she said, grabbing my sleeve, “wanted a number. She kept asking what bay your father used.”
Vanessa escaped through a service tunnel before officers closed the far gate. One of Mercer’s security contractors was arrested at the scene. He had a pistol and a phone filled with messages about the kidnapping.
Ruth's account gave investigators a direct connection between Vanessa and the search for the ledger. Rios obtained an emergency warrant for the Blue House site. A crew arrived with ground scanners and a concrete saw.
Ethan stayed with me behind the safety barriers. He pointed to a section of floor beneath the former stairwell.
“Seventeen,” he said. “Dad used the numbers from the shelter's original plans.”
The crew opened a narrow trench. Under cracked concrete lay a corroded steel compartment. Inside was a waterproof tube wrapped in oilcloth.
I almost reached for it. Rios stopped me. “Let the evidence team do its job.”
They lifted the tube, photographed the seal, and opened it in a clean work area. Inside were ledgers with original signatures, canceled checks, and a list of shell companies. The dates matched the altered files Emily had saved.
One sheet was different. At the bottom was a handwritten instruction: Vehicle issue—Cole to resolve before Friday. Next to it was an initialed approval beside a $60,000 payment.
Friday was the day Emily died.
Rios looked at the initials. G.M.
She requested an arrest warrant for Vanessa and additional searches related to Mercer and Leonard Cole. Before leaving the site, she asked me to identify the handwriting on a separate note from my father.
It read: I can't undo what we did to Ethan. Daniel must never know how much I helped.
For fourteen years, I'd been looking for the brother who left us.
May you like
The truth was that my father had helped drive him away.
And Mercer was now missing.
