Chapter 5 - The Photograph With Lily’s Name
I did not read the number.
For three seconds, I simply stared.
Daniel stood across from me.
“Read it.”
I looked.
PATERNITY PROBABILITY: 99.99%.
My name appeared beneath it.
JONATHAN HALE.
I exhaled.
Daniel leaned against the desk.
“She’s yours.”
“I knew that.”
“Did you?”
I hated him for asking.
Because for one second, I had doubted everything.
I picked up the hospital bracelet.
“Why Mercer?”
Daniel opened another envelope.
“Because Sarah delivered under an alias.”
“Why?”
“She disappeared for six weeks before Lily’s birth.”
“No. She stayed with Evelyn.”
“That’s what you were told.”
I remembered the pregnancy.
Sarah had said complications required bed rest at her mother’s country house.
I had been traveling constantly.
Every weekend I tried to visit, she found a reason I shouldn’t.
I had accepted it because I trusted her.
Daniel placed a photograph on the table.
Sarah lay in a hospital bed holding newborn Lily.
Evelyn stood beside her.
In the background was a man.
Richard Vale.
“What was he doing there?”
“Watching.”
“Why?”
“Because Sarah had stolen something.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
The old computer suddenly chimed.
Daniel looked at the screen.
Someone had accessed the building’s remote server.
“Can you stop it?”
“I can try.”
Files began disappearing.
One after another.
Daniel unplugged the network cable.
Too late.
A folder labeled NORTHSTAR vanished.
Another labeled THOMAS HALE disappeared.
Then one remained.
LILY.
I clicked it.
Photographs filled the screen.
Lily at school.
Lily at ballet.
Lily sleeping in my arms on our terrace.
Someone had been watching her for years.
I felt sick.
“Who created this folder?”
Daniel checked the metadata.
“Sarah.”
I turned on him.
“Why would my wife surveil our daughter?”
“She wasn’t.”
He enlarged one file.
“These photographs were sent to her.”
Threats.
Proof that someone could reach Lily whenever they wanted.
The earliest was taken when Lily was eleven months old.
The most recent was three days ago.
Then we found a text document.
One sentence.
RETURN WHAT YOUR FATHER STOLE OR THE GIRL PAYS.
My father.
Again.
“What did Thomas steal?”
Daniel sat slowly.
“I think I finally know.”
He opened a hidden compartment inside Box 17.
There was a photograph.
My father stood beside Charles Mercer.
Between them was a third man.
The face had been scratched out.
On the back, my father had written:
Three partners. One thief.
Below it:
Jonathan must never inherit the truth.
I recognized the location.
Hale Industries’ original Connecticut headquarters.
“Three partners?”
Daniel nodded.
“Your father and mine started something together before either company became successful.”
“And the third?”
“That’s the missing piece.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Sarah.
I answered.
“Jonathan?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Richard is in custody.”
Silence.
“Sarah?”
“That doesn’t make you safe.”
“Who does?”
She began crying.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“Then tell me now.”
“Your father discovered who was behind everything.”
“Who?”
“He hid the evidence.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he steal?”
“A list.”
“Of what?”
“Accounts. Payments. Names.”
“Why does someone think you have it?”
“Because I lied.”
I closed my eyes.
“About what?”
“I told them I found it.”
“Why?”
“To keep them away from Lily.”
“That clearly worked.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
I softened despite myself.
“Come home.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Jonathan, listen to me. Richard is not the person you need to fear.”
“Then give me a name.”
Silence.
“Sarah.”
“I never knew his real name.”
“What?”
“My father called him the third partner.”
Daniel looked up sharply.
Sarah continued.
“Thomas knew his identity.”
“Then where did Thomas hide the list?”
“He left you the answer.”
“My father left me nothing except the company.”
“No. He left you something on your thirtieth birthday.”
I remembered.
A watch.
Old.
Unfashionable.
My father’s first wristwatch.
I had placed it in the safe years ago.
Sarah whispered, “Look inside it.”
The call ended.
Daniel and I drove home.
The watch was still in my private safe.
I turned it over.
Nothing.
Then I remembered my father repairing watches when I was young.
I pressed the crown and twisted.
The back released.
Inside was a tiny folded strip of paper.
Not a list.
An address.
And beneath it, three words:
ASK YOUR MOTHER.
My mother had been dead for twelve years.
Or so I believed.
Then Marcus called.
“Jonathan, you need to see something.”
“What?”
“We checked the death certificate.”
My hand tightened around the watch.
“Whose?”
“Your mother’s.”
“And?”
May you like
Marcus paused.
“There is no record that her body was ever identified.”
