Chapter 8 - The Name on the Prescription
The forged agreement explained everything Marcus had done.
Thomas wanted control through family succession.
Marcus wanted ownership through fraud.
They had cooperated only because each believed he could betray the other first.
Graham went upstairs anyway.
He entered the executive conference room alone.
Lily sat beside Marcus.
Thomas stood at the window.
Father and son looked at each other for the first time in eleven years.
“You look like your mother,” Thomas said.
“You don’t.”
Thomas smiled.
Graham looked at Lily.
She was watching his hands.
He signed discreetly beside his leg.
“Close eyes when lights go out.”
Her expression did not change.
Good girl.
Marcus pushed the document forward.
“Sign.”
Graham picked up the pen.
“First, let Lily go.”
“No.”
“Then we’re done.”
Marcus raised the syringe.
Graham signed one word.
Now.
The lights went out.
Lily dropped beneath the table.
Federal agents breached both doors.
Gunfire cracked.
Graham crawled toward Lily.
Someone grabbed him.
Thomas.
For one strange second, father and son struggled in darkness.
Then Thomas whispered:
“Marcus killed Alexander.”
The lights returned.
Marcus was gone.
Thomas had been shot in the leg.
Lily was safe.
But Nora was missing.
Again.
On Marcus’s abandoned desk, agents found a prescription pad.
Graham’s experimental drug had been prescribed under another physician’s credentials.
The name shocked Evelyn.
Dr. Rebecca Mercer.
Graham’s mother.
Dead for twenty-three years.
Or supposedly dead.
Graham looked at Evelyn.
“Tell me.”
Evelyn sat down.
Rebecca had helped develop the original compound.
When she discovered Thomas intended to weaponize it, she tried to expose him.
Thomas retaliated.
A laboratory fire killed her.
At least that was the story.
“Was anyone in this family actually dead?” Graham asked bitterly.
Evelyn looked away.
Graham understood.
His mother might still be alive.
They traced the prescription license.
It had been used three weeks earlier.
At a clinic in Wisconsin.
Graham drove there with Lily and federal protection.
The clinic director refused to discuss patients.
Then Lily wandered toward a waiting-room wall.
Dozens of photographs showed former staff.
She pointed.
A woman in her sixties.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
Same eyes as Graham.
Rebecca Mercer.
His mother.
The director finally spoke.
“She left yesterday.”
“With whom?”
“A woman named Nora Bennett.”
Graham froze.
Nora had known.
His phone rang.
Nora.
He answered.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“I had to get Rebecca before Marcus did.”
“You knew my mother was alive?”
“Only for three days.”
“Where?”
A pause.
Then Nora whispered an address.
Graham drove there.
An abandoned church.
He entered alone.
Nora stood near the altar.
Beside her was Rebecca.
Graham stopped.
Twenty-three years disappeared.
His mother looked at him.
“Graham?”
He could not answer.
She crossed the room.
Touched his face.
“My boy.”
He broke.
For several minutes, there was no conspiracy.
No company.
No fortune.
Just a son holding the mother he had buried as a child.
Then Rebecca whispered:
“We have to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because Marcus knows where we are.”
The church doors slammed shut.
A red laser dot appeared on Graham’s chest.
Rebecca looked toward the balcony.
May you like
Someone was standing above them.
And the person holding the rifle was Dr. Cole.
