Chapter 5 - The Twenty-Ninth Floor
“Lock it,” Rowan said.
“It is.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Kitchen.”
“Give her the phone.”
A moment later Anna answered.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Don’t open the door.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Police are coming.”
Rowan was already moving.
“Can you see who’s outside?”
“No.”
A knock sounded through the phone.
Anna went silent.
Then another.
“Anna?”
“I’m here.”
“Stay away from the door.”
A voice came from the hallway.
“Ms. Carter? Building maintenance.”
Anna whispered, “That’s not maintenance.”
“How do you know?”
“Our maintenance guy is seventy.”
Rowan almost smiled despite everything.
Police reached apartment 3B seven minutes later.
The hallway was empty.
But a package sat outside.
Inside was Anna’s missing employee badge.
Broken in half.
Nothing else.
The message was obvious.
Stop.
Rowan refused.
By the next morning, he had moved Anna and Lily temporarily into a secure company-owned apartment.
Anna objected.
“I don’t need luxury.”
“It isn’t luxury. It’s a locked door with security downstairs.”
“I’ll repay you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I owe everyone something.”
“No.”
Rowan looked at her.
“That belief is how people like Vale controlled you.”
Anna fell silent.
At Mercer Tower, the investigation expanded.
Dozens of workers came forward after Rowan issued written guarantees against retaliation.
Their stories were painfully similar.
Unpaid hours.
Improper deductions.
Threats.
Badges disabled after complaints.
Rowan listened personally to several.
Not because public relations recommended it.
Public relations strongly recommended he not.
He listened because for years he had walked past these people without seeing them.
Now he wanted to understand.
The most important testimony came from a night cleaner named Thomas Reed.
“I saw Vale using the twenty-ninth-floor conference room after midnight.”
“With whom?”
“Board members.”
“Which?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Mr. Price.”
Gerald.
“And someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know her name.”
Thomas described a woman in a gray coat.
She never used the main elevators.
She entered through the service level.
Evelyn searched access records.
One visitor badge appeared repeatedly.
No name.
Only a number.
Rowan stared.
“Twenty-nine, zero-seven.”
“What?”
“My father died July twenty-ninth.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“You think that’s intentional?”
“I don’t know.”
They traced the badge.
It had been created seven years earlier.
The day after Charles Mercer’s funeral.
Authorized by Samuel Grant.
Rowan confronted him immediately.
Samuel looked stunned.
“I never created that.”
“Your authorization code did.”
“Then someone used it.”
“Who had your code?”
Samuel hesitated.
“One person.”
Rowan already knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
“Who?”
“Gerald.”
That afternoon, investigators discovered that visitor 2907 had entered Mercer Tower forty-six times over seven years.
Always late.
Always on days financial reports were finalized.
Security footage had been systematically deleted.
Except once.
Evelyn recovered six seconds from an archived backup.
Rowan watched.
A woman stepped from the service elevator.
Gray coat.
Dark hair.
She turned toward the camera.
Rowan leaned closer.
He knew her.
Not personally.
From a photograph.
One sitting on his father’s old desk.
“Who is she?” Evelyn asked.
Rowan walked to the shelf and retrieved the photograph.
Charles Mercer stood beside three people at a company event twenty years earlier.
Samuel.
Gerald.
And the woman from the footage.
“My father’s former chief financial officer.”
“What happened to her?”
“She resigned.”
“When?”
“Right before he died.”
Evelyn searched.
“Name?”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
Records showed Rebecca had supposedly moved overseas.
No tax filings.
No employment records.
No public trace.
Yet she had been entering Mercer Tower for seven years.
Evelyn looked at Rowan.
“Why?”
“Because she never really left.”
They searched Charles’s notebook.
Rebecca’s name appeared only once.
R.S. knows where the second ledger is.
Second ledger.
Rowan stared.
“What second ledger?”
Nobody knew.
Until Anna called.
“Mr. Mercer, Lily remembered something.”
“What?”
“She says she saw a woman in your office.”
“When?”
“The morning she came to clean.”
Rowan’s pulse quickened.
“Before I arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Put Lily on.”
Lily took the phone.
“What did she look like?”
“Dark hair.”
“What was she doing?”
“Looking in the bookshelf.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“She asked where I got the letter.”
Rowan stood.
“What did you tell her?”
“That Mom wrote it.”
“What happened next?”
“She smiled.”
“What did she say?”
Lily hesitated.
“She said my mom was brave.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“She gave me something.”
Rowan’s heart kicked.
“What did she give you, Lily?”
“A little silver thing.”
“Where is it?”
“I put it in my lunch bag.”
Rowan remembered the bag.
After the hospital, it had been brought to the secure apartment.
“Don’t touch it. I’m coming.”
Thirty minutes later, Lily placed a tiny silver USB drive on the table.
Rowan stared at it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Fair enough.
Attached to the drive was a paper label.
Two words.
FOR ROWAN.
Evelyn connected it to an isolated laptop.
One encrypted file appeared.
She tried opening it.
Password required.
Rowan entered his father’s birthday.
Wrong.
His mother’s.
Wrong.
Mercer.
Wrong.
Lily leaned over.
“What’s that little box?”
“Password.”
“What password?”
“We don’t know.”
She looked at the label.
“Maybe your name.”
“I tried.”
“No.”
Lily pointed.
“Your whole name.”
Rowan typed:
ROWAN CHARLES MERCER.
The file opened.
Inside was a video.
His father appeared on screen.
Older.
Sick.
But unmistakably lucid.
Rowan forgot to breathe.
Charles looked directly into the camera.
“Rowan, if you’re seeing this, then Rebecca finally decided it was safe.”
Rowan sat down.
His father continued.
“There is something about Mercer Holdings I never told you.”
Then the video cut to black.
A second file appeared.
Evelyn clicked it.
May you like
The title contained only four words:
WHO REALLY OWNS MERCER.
