Chapter 4 - The Man at the Gate
I moved Lily behind me.
“Everybody stays here.”
I called my security team.
Eight minutes away.
Too long.
The man knocked again.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Not Lily this time.
Me.
I approached the door but didn’t open it.
“Who are you?”
“Federal Express.”
Nobody believed him.
“Leave it.”
“I need a signature.”
“Leave it.”
Silence.
Then footsteps retreated.
I waited.
Thirty seconds.
One minute.
Dr. Bennett checked the side window.
“He’s gone.”
I opened the door only after my security team arrived.
A small package sat on the porch.
No shipping label.
No postage.
My security chief, Marcus Hale, examined it.
“We don’t touch it.”
The bomb unit was called.
It wasn’t explosive.
Inside was a flash drive.
And a photograph of Rachel.
Taken two weeks before she died.
On the back:
ASK EVELYN WHAT RACHEL FOUND.
My mother sat when I showed her.
“What did she find?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mom.”
“I swear.”
“Then why your name?”
She stared at Rachel’s photograph.
“Because I was with her that week.”
That was new.
Rachel’s final weeks had been chaos.
Hospital rooms.
Doctors.
Pain medication.
Hope collapsing by degrees.
My mother had visited often.
I had assumed she was supporting us.
Apparently there had been more.
“What were you doing?”
“Helping Rachel investigate something.”
Anna stood.
“What?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“Your company.”
Anna went still.
My company had acquired Genodyne Labs.
Anna’s research centered on inherited blood disorders.
Shortly after the acquisition, the program was shut down.
I had approved the restructuring.
Rachel had apparently discovered something in the archived research.
“What?”
My mother shook her head.
“She never finished telling me.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Daniel, I watched your wife die. Do you really think I wanted to keep this from you?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Marcus entered.
“We traced the vehicle.”
“What vehicle?”
“The courier. Cameras caught him leaving.”
“And?”
“Rental. Fake identification.”
“Anything else?”
He handed me a tablet.
Security footage showed a dark sedan.
The driver’s face wasn’t visible.
But the passenger was.
I knew him.
Richard Vale.
My former chief financial officer.
Vale had left Mercer Capital after an internal dispute two years earlier.
He had accused me of forcing him out.
I had accused him of hiding losses.
Neither of us had spoken since.
“What does Vale have to do with Rachel?”
Anna looked over my shoulder.
Her face changed.
“You know him?”
“Yes.”
“I know him too.”
She pulled an old Genodyne photograph from a drawer.
Twenty researchers stood together.
Vale stood in the back row.
“What was he doing there?”
“He represented the investors.”
I hadn’t known.
Vale had handled dozens of acquisitions.
Genodyne had been one.
“What did Rachel find?”
Anna looked at the flash drive.
“Maybe that.”
Marcus advised against opening it on any networked computer.
Dr. Bennett had an old laptop.
We disconnected everything.
Inserted the drive.
One video file appeared.
Rachel.
My wife sat in a room I recognized.
Our old Manhattan apartment.
She looked sick.
But lucid.
The timestamp was eleven days before her death.
“Daniel,” she began.
I stopped breathing.
“If you’re watching this, something went wrong.”
My mother started crying.
Rachel continued.
“There are things I should have told you years ago. About Anna. About Lily. I was afraid, and fear made me dishonest.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Then she said something unexpected.
“But this isn’t about Lily’s conception. It’s about what happened at Genodyne.”
Anna moved closer.
Rachel held up a folder.
“Someone falsified trial data. Patients were hurt. The research wasn’t shut down because it failed. It was shut down because someone needed the evidence buried.”
My stomach dropped.
I had signed the closure.
Had someone used me?
Rachel looked directly into the camera.
“Richard Vale knows.”
The video glitched.
Static.
Then resumed.
“If anything happens to the files, Evelyn has the key.”
I turned toward my mother.
She looked confused.
“I don’t.”
Rachel continued.
“The key isn’t a key. It’s something Daniel would never throw away.”
The recording ended.
“What does that mean?”
Nobody knew.
Then Lily spoke.
“Maybe Mommy meant her music box.”
I turned.
“What music box?”
“The blue one.”
My mother stared at her.
“Lily, how do you know about that?”
“Grandma showed me.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I never showed her a blue music box.”
Lily frowned.
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“At the secret place.”
Everyone looked at Dr. Bennett.
He shook his head.
“There is no music box here.”
Lily’s face changed.
She pointed toward the hallway.
“Yes there is.”
She walked to a cabinet I hadn’t noticed.
Opened the bottom drawer.
Reached behind a stack of blankets.
And pulled out a blue wooden music box.
My mother whispered, “I’ve never seen that before.”
I took it from Lily.
On the bottom was Rachel’s handwriting.
DANIEL — 0714.
Our wedding date.
I entered 0714 into the tiny combination lock.
It clicked.
The lid opened.
There was no jewelry inside.
Only a brass key.
And an address.
May you like
My old Manhattan office.
The office that had been sealed since the night Rachel died.
