Chapter 11 - MICHAEL SLOAN
Michael Sloan had not disappeared.
He had been erased.
His bank accounts closed.
His car found abandoned.
His family told he had run off after financial trouble.
Police never found a body.
Rebecca had told people he left her.
Mercer, it turned out, was Michael’s former business partner.
That explained their connection.
Hall reopened the old case.
By afternoon, detectives found something disturbing.
Two weeks before Michael disappeared, he had filed a confidential complaint against Mercer.
Fraud.
Stolen client funds.
Forged signatures.
Exactly the pattern happening now.
Rebecca had been questioned.
She denied knowing anything.
Then Michael vanished.
“Do you think she killed him?” Claire asked.
Hall shook his head.
“We don’t assume anything.”
I did.
That night, Emily couldn’t sleep.
She came into my room carrying her stuffed rabbit.
“Can I stay here?”
“Always.”
She climbed into bed.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then she asked:
“Were you really going to marry her?”
I stared at the ceiling.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The question hurt because there was no good answer.
“I thought she loved us.”
“She didn’t like me.”
“I know that now.”
Emily frowned.
“I knew before.”
I turned toward her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She picked at the rabbit’s ear.
“I tried.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“At the beach.”
I remembered.
Emily had said Rebecca was mean when I wasn’t around.
Rebecca said Emily was jealous.
I had told Emily she needed to give Rebecca a chance.
Another memory.
Another knife.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily shrugged in that heartbreaking way children do when they don’t want adults to feel bad.
“It’s okay.”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“It isn’t.”
She looked at me.
Then said quietly:
“Sometimes grown-ups don’t listen until something gets really bad.”
There was nothing I could say to that.
At 2:00 a.m., Detective Hall called.
They found Mercer.
He was at a private airfield outside Wilmington.
Trying to leave.
Rebecca wasn’t with him.
Mercer demanded a lawyer.
Then he demanded a deal.
By morning, he was talking.
Rebecca had planned everything.
But Mercer claimed she had another reason for targeting me.
“She didn’t meet Daniel by accident,” he told Hall.
My skin went cold.
“How did she meet me?”
Mercer looked through the interrogation-room glass.
“Sarah.”
I stared at him.
“What about Sarah?”
He smiled.
“Rebecca knew your wife.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
Mercer leaned back.
“St. Matthew’s Oncology Center.”
That was Sarah’s hospital.
Rebecca had worked there briefly.
Administrative department.
I had never known.
“She saw you,” Mercer said.
“Saw what?”
“Sarah’s records.”
My chest tightened.
“What records?”
“Insurance.”
“Trust documents?”
He nodded.
“And property holdings.”
I wanted to climb through the glass.
Rebecca had known about Emily’s money before she ever introduced herself to me.
Mercer continued.
“She waited.”
“How long?”
“Almost a year after Sarah died.”
I remembered meeting Rebecca in a coffee shop.
She spilled her drink near my table.
Laughed.
Apologized.
Asked if the seat beside me was free.
I thought fate had given me a second chance.
It wasn’t fate.
It was surveillance.
“Where is she?”
Mercer’s smile faded.
“I don’t know.”
Hall slammed a photo of Emily onto the table.
“You helped plan the abduction of a child.”
Mercer looked away.
Then said:
“There’s one place.”
I leaned closer.
“Where?”
He gave us an address.
An abandoned summer house in Maryland.
It had belonged to Michael Sloan.
Rebecca’s first husband.
Police entered the property that evening.
Rebecca wasn’t there.
But in the basement, they found a suitcase.
Inside were documents.
Cash.
Fake passports.
And a human wedding ring.
Engraved with two names.
Michael & Rebecca.
Then a detective found scratches on the concrete floor.
May you like
They brought in a forensic team.
And beneath that floor was something Rebecca had spent nine years hiding.
