PART 3
For several seconds, no one moved.
The rain tapped softly against the ambulance roof. The stretcher remained beside the porch, covered from head to foot, while the man claiming to be my father stood three feet away from me.
Lucan Voss looked older than he had in the photographs.
The serious eyes were the same. So was the narrow smile, although there was no smile on his face now. A pale scar ran from his left temple to the corner of his jaw, disappearing beneath his collar.
His right hand still gripped the car door.
The little finger curved inward.
Exactly like mine.
Sabine backed toward the porch.
“You’re dead.”
Lucan looked at her.
“You tried.”
The police officer who had stepped from the first vehicle placed one hand near the radio on his shoulder.
A woman in a dark coat emerged from the passenger side. She appeared to be in her early forties, with short black hair and a silver badge clipped to her belt.
“Detective Lena Ortiz,” she said. “Nobody leaves until I understand what is happening.”
Sabine pointed toward Lucan.
“That man is an imposter.”
Lucan removed a worn leather wallet from his coat.
He handed the detective a driver’s license, a passport, and a folded document.
“My legal name has been Luke Mercer for twenty-one years,” he said. “My birth name is Lucan Matthias Voss.”
Detective Ortiz examined the documents.
“Why did you change it?”
“Because the last time I used my real name, my brothers tried to kill me.”
Sabine laughed, but the sound was too loud and too quick.
“This is insane.”
Lucan turned toward the covered stretcher.
“May I see her?”
One of the paramedics glanced at Detective Ortiz.
The detective nodded.
Lucan walked across the yard.
Every step seemed to cost him something.
The paramedic pulled the sheet down far enough to reveal Mrs. Voss’s face.
Odette looked smaller than she had in life. Her silver hair had been combed away from her forehead. Her eyes were closed, and the deep lines around her mouth had softened.
Lucan touched two fingers to her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
His voice broke on the final word.
Sabine watched from the porch without blinking.
Lucan bent over his mother and whispered something I could not hear.
Then he straightened and faced Detective Ortiz.
“My mother did not die naturally.”
Sabine’s head snapped toward him.
“You haven’t seen her in twenty-two years. You know nothing about her health.”
“I know she called me three nights ago.”
A pulse began beating visibly in Sabine’s neck.
Lucan reached inside his coat and removed a small digital recorder.
“She said someone in the family had discovered what she was doing. She believed they were going to stop her before she could testify.”
“Testify about what?” Detective Ortiz asked.
Lucan looked at Sabine.
“The theft from Voss Family Press, the warehouse fire, my attempted murder, and the hit-and-run that killed Elise Hale.”
My mother’s name struck me harder than anything else.
I stepped forward.
“You said you knew who killed her.”
Lucan looked at me, and for the first time, shame entered his face.
“I know who was driving the car.”
Sabine moved down the porch steps.
“Do not listen to him, Merrick. He abandoned your mother. He abandoned you.”
Lucan did not deny it.
That hurt more than if he had shouted.
Detective Ortiz raised one hand.
“Everyone will get an opportunity to speak. Ms. Voss, stay where you are.”
Sabine ignored her.
She approached me slowly.
“Your mother spent years waiting for him. He never came. Ask him why.”
“I said stay where you are.”
The uniformed officer stepped between us.
Sabine finally stopped.
Lucan’s eyes remained on mine.
“She’s telling the truth about one thing,” he said. “I stayed away.”
“Why?”
“Not here.”
“My grandmother is dead. My mother was killed. You appeared after twenty-two years and called yourself my father. You do not get to decide where we discuss it.”
Pain moved across his face.
“You’re right.”
He looked at the police, the ambulance, and the neighbors watching from behind their curtains.
Then he began speaking.
“The night I made the recording in the basement, Bram found me.”
The rain grew heavier.
Lucan’s voice remained low and controlled.
“He struck me from behind. When I woke up, my wrists were tied, and I was inside the trunk of Calder’s car.”
Sabine shook her head.
“He is lying.”
Lucan continued.
“I heard all three of them arguing. Calder wanted to take me to the river. Bram wanted to burn the car with me inside it. Sabine told them they needed my blood in the warehouse first so the police would connect my disappearance to the fire.”
Detective Ortiz looked toward Sabine.
“You were present?”
“No.”
Lucan touched the scar on his face.
“They opened the trunk near the warehouse. I kicked Bram in the chest and ran. Calder caught me beside the loading dock. We fought. I fell through a section of damaged flooring into the drainage channel beneath the building.”
“The warehouse was already burning?” I asked.
“Bram had started the fire.”
Sabine turned toward the officer.
“Are you really allowing this?”
Lucan ignored her.
“The drainage current carried me beneath the street. I struck my head and lost consciousness. A sanitation worker found me almost a mile away the following morning.”
“Why didn’t you go home?”
“I woke up in a hospital without knowing my name.”
The anger inside me faltered.
Lucan continued.
“I had no identification. My face was swollen, my jaw was fractured, and I could not remember where I lived. The hospital listed me as John Doe.”
“How long?”
“Nearly eleven months before I remembered the name Elise.”
I stared at him.
“Eleven months?”
“I remembered pieces. A printing press. A blue door. Your mother’s face. I thought Elise was my sister at first.”
“What happened when you remembered everything?”
“I called her.”
My throat tightened.
“What did she say?”
“She cried.”
Lucan looked toward Odette’s house as if he could see twenty-one years into the past.
“She told me she had a son.”
He looked at me.
“You were eleven months old.”
“Then you knew about me.”
“Yes.”
“And you still stayed away.”
“Yes.”
Sabine smiled faintly.
She wanted the answer to destroy him.
It nearly did.
“Why?” I asked again.
“Because the day after I called Elise, someone broke into her apartment.”
Lucan’s voice hardened.
“They did not steal money. They left a photograph of you sleeping in your crib on the kitchen table.”
My stomach turned.
“Written across the photograph were six words: Dead fathers should not make phone calls.”
Sabine’s expression did not change.
Lucan noticed.
“So I contacted a federal investigator named Daniel Crane. He had been looking into suspicious transfers from Sabine’s bank.”
Detective Ortiz wrote the name in a notebook.
“Crane arranged a protected identity for me while he built a case. He told me not to contact my family until arrests were made.”
“What happened to the case?”
“Crane died in a house fire four months later.”
The detective stopped writing.
“Was his death investigated?”
“It was ruled accidental.”
“You didn’t believe that.”
“No.”
Lucan looked at Sabine.
“I believed my family had found him.”
Sabine crossed her arms.
“You have blamed us for every bad thing that has happened in your miserable life.”
Lucan’s jaw tightened.
“I stayed away because I thought distance kept Elise and Merrick alive.”
“It didn’t,” I said.
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
Lucan closed his eyes.
“No.”
The single word carried twenty years of guilt.
“When Merrick was nine,” he continued, “Elise contacted me through an address Daniel Crane had given her.”
I felt the world narrow around us.
“She told you she was in danger?”
“She said Sabine had approached her outside your school.”
I looked at Sabine.
She gave no reaction.
“What did you want from my mother?” I asked.
“She was unstable,” Sabine replied. “She believed our family owed her money.”
“My mother’s letters said she wanted nothing.”
“She lied.”
Lucan stepped toward his sister.
The officer blocked him.
“Elise had found one of my old notebooks,” Lucan said. “It contained the license plate number of the car Calder used the night of the warehouse fire. She believed it could prove they had been there.”
“What did she plan to do with it?”
“Give it to the police.”
“And then she was killed.”
Lucan nodded.
“I arranged to meet her near the intersection where she died. I was watching from inside a closed bakery across the street because I needed to make certain she had not been followed.”
My skin became cold.
“You saw it happen?”
“Yes.”
“Who was driving?”
Lucan looked directly at Sabine.
“She was.”
Sabine’s mouth fell open.
“That is a lie.”
“You were driving Father’s gray Lincoln.”
“I sold that car years before Elise died.”
“No. You changed the registration and kept it inside Calder’s warehouse.”
Detective Ortiz wrote quickly.
“Were there witnesses besides you?”
“Bram was in the passenger seat.”
Sabine pointed at Lucan.
“He was supposedly dead, living under another name, hiding inside a bakery at midnight. What jury would believe him?”
“I ran to Elise after the car struck her.”
I could barely breathe.
“Was she alive?”
Lucan nodded slowly.
“For less than a minute.”
I stepped toward him.
“What did she say?”
His eyes filled.
“She said your name.”
Everything inside me broke.
The ambulance, the police, the rain, and the woman standing beneath the porch disappeared.
There was only my mother lying in the street and the father I had never known kneeling beside her.
“You left her there,” I whispered.
“I heard the car turn around.”
“What?”
“They came back.”
Lucan’s voice shook.
“I believed they were coming to finish what they started. Elise told me to go. She said if they found me alive, they would look for you next.”
“So you ran.”
“Yes.”
“You let her die alone.”
“I did.”
I hit him.
My fist struck his mouth before I realized I had moved.
The uniformed officer grabbed my arms.
Lucan stumbled backward against his car.
Blood appeared on his lower lip.
He did not defend himself.
“Let me go!” I shouted.
Detective Ortiz stepped between us.
“That is enough.”
Lucan wiped the blood with his thumb.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserved worse.”
“Yes.”
“I was nine years old. My mother died, and I had no one.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I sent money.”
I stopped struggling.
“What?”
Lucan reached into his wallet and removed a folded bank receipt.
“I created a trust through an attorney. Monthly payments were sent to your aunt until you turned eighteen.”
“My aunt told me there was no money.”
“I sent nearly two hundred thousand dollars.”
I stared at the receipt.
My aunt had moved to Ohio when I was nineteen. She had left without giving me an address.
I remembered her complaining whenever I asked for school shoes.
I remembered washing dishes to earn five dollars.
I remembered sleeping on a sofa because she said there was no room for me in the bedrooms.
“She stole it.”
“I did not know until last year.”
“You knew where I was last year?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come then?”
Lucan looked at the ground.
“There is no answer that will make you forgive me.”
“I didn’t ask for an answer that would make me forgive you.”
“I was afraid.”
The honesty silenced me.
Lucan looked up.
“I had spent twenty years telling myself that staying away protected you. When I discovered you were grown, I could no longer use that excuse. But by then, I did not know how to walk into your life and admit that I had watched from a distance while you struggled.”
“You watched me?”
“Not constantly. I received reports.”
“From whom?”
Lucan’s eyes moved toward Mr. Givens.
The old man stood beneath the porch roof.
He suddenly looked very tired.
I turned toward him.
“You knew my father was alive.”
Mr. Givens lowered his head.
“Yes.”
Mrs. Voss’s final letter seemed to burn inside the envelope in my hand.
“Did my grandmother know?”
“No.”
“You lived beside her.”
“I promised Lucan.”
“You listened to her cry for twenty-two years, and you said nothing?”
Mr. Givens’s eyes filled with tears.
“I thought silence kept her alive.”
“She died anyway.”
He had no response.
Detective Ortiz stepped forward.
“We are moving this conversation inside. The medical examiner will take Mrs. Voss’s body, and the house needs to remain undisturbed until we determine whether her death is suspicious.”
Sabine immediately objected.
“This is my family’s property.”
“No,” I said.
I held up the deed.
“It’s mine.”
Her eyes fixed on the envelope.
“Not for long.”
We gathered in the kitchen while the rain struck the windows.
It felt wrong to sit around Mrs. Voss’s table without her.
Her cup remained beside the sink. A half-finished crossword puzzle lay beneath the sugar bowl. One of her sweaters hung across the back of a chair.
Detective Ortiz placed Lucan’s recorder in an evidence bag.
She also collected the flash drive Mrs. Voss had left inside the envelope.
“What is on it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Sabine sat at the opposite end of the table with an attorney she had called less than twenty minutes earlier.
Calder and Bram had not arrived.
According to Sabine, she had been unable to reach either of them.
Detective Ortiz connected the flash drive to a laptop.
Several folders appeared on the screen.
BANK RECORDS.
WAREHOUSE.
ELISE.
FINAL STATEMENT.
Sabine’s attorney stood.
“My client will not remain while private family documents are viewed.”
“You are free to leave,” Detective Ortiz said. “Your client is not.”
“Is she under arrest?”
“Not yet.”
Sabine’s smile disappeared.
The detective opened the folder marked FINAL STATEMENT.
A video filled the screen.
Mrs. Voss was sitting in the blue room. She wore the same gray sweater she had worn during my last visit.
The date in the corner showed that the recording had been made four days earlier.
“My name is Odette Voss,” she began. “I am eighty-one years old. I am of sound mind, and I am making this statement without coercion.”
Sabine stared at the screen.
Mrs. Voss continued.
“My children believe age has made me weak. They are correct. My body is weak. My memory is not.”
The video cut to photographs of company records and bank statements.
“I discovered six years ago that my husband and three eldest children concealed evidence relating to the disappearance of my youngest son, Lucan.”
Sabine’s attorney leaned toward her and whispered something.
Mrs. Voss described the hidden letters, the false invoices, and the pressure to sell the house.
Then she lifted a small medicine bottle toward the camera.
“During the past month, my medication has been altered twice.”
Detective Ortiz paused the video.
“What medication?”
“Heart tablets,” I said. “I labeled her bottles.”
“Did you prepare them?”
“No. I wrote the days on the lids so she wouldn’t take the wrong ones.”
Sabine’s attorney looked at me.
“How convenient.”
Detective Ortiz resumed the recording.
“The first time, I found two white tablets inside a bottle that should have contained only blue ones. The second time, several pills had been crushed and mixed into my tea.”
My hands tightened beneath the table.
Mrs. Voss looked directly into the camera.
“I did not report this because I needed time to secure the evidence and protect Merrick. But should I die unexpectedly, the police must investigate my children.”
Sabine stood.
“This is absurd.”
Her attorney pulled her back down.
On the video, Mrs. Voss lifted three envelopes.
“One copy of my evidence is with my attorney. A second is with a person I trust. The third will be delivered to the police after my death.”
She lowered the envelopes.
“I also wish to state that Merrick Hale never asked me for money or property. I transferred my house to him because he treated me with more kindness in seven months than my children showed me in twenty years.”
Sabine’s face twisted.
Mrs. Voss’s final words were quieter.
“If Lucan is alive, tell him I never stopped waiting.”
The video ended.
Lucan covered his face.
No one spoke.
Detective Ortiz closed the laptop.
“Ms. Voss, when did you last see your mother alive?”
Sabine’s attorney answered.
“My client will not respond without a formal interview.”
The detective looked at Sabine.
“That is your right.”
Sabine gathered her purse.
The uniformed officer moved toward the doorway.
“You’re not leaving yet.”
“My lawyer just said—”
“You are being detained while we secure a warrant.”
“For what?”
Detective Ortiz held up the medicine bottle shown in the video.
“For a suspicious death connected to an open allegation of attempted poisoning.”
Sabine looked at me.
“This is your fault.”
“My fault?”
“You walked into this family and filled an old woman’s head with lies.”
“I didn’t even know who she was.”
“You expect anyone to believe that?”
Lucan stood.
“Leave him alone.”
Sabine looked at her brother.
“You do not get to protect him now.”
The words struck their target.
Lucan lowered his eyes.
As Sabine was escorted outside, she leaned close to me.
“You think you know what happened to Elise because he told you a sad story?”
I did not answer.
She smiled.
“Ask him why the police found his blood beneath her fingernails.”
Before I could respond, the officer guided her through the door.
I turned toward Lucan.
He had become motionless.
“What did she mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were with my mother when she died.”
“I held her.”
“Did she scratch you?”
“No.”
“Then why would your blood be beneath her fingernails?”
“I don’t know.”
Mr. Givens looked toward the window.
Too quickly.
I noticed.
“So do you know?” I asked him.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Merrick—”
“You lied to my grandmother every day. You lied to me for seven months. Do not tell me you suddenly found honesty.”
Lucan moved between us.
“Give him time.”
“I have given all of you enough time.”
I picked up my backpack.
Detective Ortiz blocked the hallway.
“You cannot leave yet.”
“Am I being detained?”
“No, but I need a formal statement.”
“You have my number.”
“Merrick, this may be a murder investigation.”
I looked toward the empty chair where Mrs. Voss had eaten half a baked potato for dinner.
“It should have been an investigation twenty-two years ago.”
Then I walked out.
I did not return to my apartment.
I walked through the rain until my clothes were soaked and my shoes filled with water.
My mother had not died alone.
For years, that had been one of the worst parts of remembering her death. I had imagined her lying beneath a streetlight with strangers walking past.
Now I knew my father had held her.
But he had also run.
My aunt had stolen the money meant to raise me.
Mr. Givens had watched my grandmother grieve while knowing her son was alive.
Every person connected to my past had hidden something from me.
At midnight, I arrived at the college library.
The building was closed, but my supervisor, Mrs. Chen, saw me standing beneath the entrance light.
She unlocked the door.
“What happened?”
“I need to check the employee records.”
“At midnight?”
“Please.”
She studied my face, then let me inside.
I pulled up my work schedule from the previous week.
On the night Mrs. Voss died, I had worked at the circulation desk from six until eleven.
Three coworkers had been present.
Security cameras covered the entrance.
I printed the schedule.
Then I checked my phone.
Seven missed calls from Lucan.
Four from Detective Ortiz.
One voicemail from an unknown number.
I played it.
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
Then a man whispered, “Your grandmother did not give you the whole letter.”
The call ended.
I listened again.
The voice sounded familiar, but I could not place it.
Another message arrived.
A photograph.
It showed the manila envelope Mrs. Voss had left for me lying open on a wooden desk.
Beside it was a second page written in her handwriting.
At the bottom of the photograph, a message appeared.
ASK GIVENS WHAT HE REMOVED.
I called Mr. Givens.
He did not answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
At 12:36, I left the library and took the final bus toward Mrs. Voss’s street.
Police tape stretched across the front porch.
Lucan’s sedan was gone.
Mr. Givens’s house was dark.
His front door stood slightly open.
I crossed the yard.
“Mr. Givens?”
No answer.
The living room had been disturbed. Couch cushions lay on the floor. Drawers had been pulled open. A broken lamp rested beside the wall.
I called Detective Ortiz while moving toward the kitchen.
“This is Merrick. Someone broke into Mr. Givens’s house.”
“Do not enter.”
“I’m already inside.”
“Merrick, leave immediately.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
I froze.
Someone was inside the house.
I moved quietly toward the back door.
Another creak.
Then a shadow crossed the staircase wall.
I grabbed a heavy fireplace poker.
“Mr. Givens?”
A figure appeared at the top of the stairs.
I raised the poker.
Lucan stepped into the light.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“I came to find Givens.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone sent me a photograph saying he removed part of my grandmother’s letter.”
Lucan came down the stairs slowly.
“What photograph?”
I showed him my phone.
His face changed.
“Odette wrote that page weeks ago.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“No. I recognize the stationery. Her attorney purchased it for her.”
“What did Mr. Givens remove?”
“I don’t know.”
“You use that answer often.”
Lucan reached the bottom step.
“I deserve your anger, but we need to leave. Whoever searched this house may return.”
A weak sound came from the basement.
Lucan and I looked toward the door beneath the stairs.
The sound came again.
A groan.
We opened the basement door.
Mr. Givens lay at the bottom of the steps.
Blood covered one side of his face.
We ran down.
He was conscious, but barely.
Lucan knelt beside him.
“Who did this?”
Mr. Givens opened his eyes.
“Bram.”
“Where did he go?”
“The letter.”
“What did you remove from Odette’s envelope?” I asked.
Mr. Givens looked at me.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From Lucan.”
My father became still.
“What are you talking about?” Lucan asked.
Mr. Givens struggled to breathe.
“Odette learned something after the DNA test.”
Lucan leaned closer.
“What?”
Mr. Givens reached inside his torn shirt and removed a folded piece of paper.
It was stained with blood.
I opened it.
The writing belonged to Mrs. Voss.
Merrick,
There is one final truth you must know before you decide whether Lucan deserves a place in your life.
Your mother was afraid of him before she died.
I looked up.
Lucan’s face had gone pale.
The letter continued.
Elise came to me once when you were five years old. She said Lucan had found her and was watching your apartment. She believed he had become dangerous.
“She never met your mother,” Lucan said.
Mr. Givens coughed.
“She did.”
Lucan stared at him.
“You told me Odette never knew where Elise lived.”
“I lied.”
The basement felt colder.
I continued reading.
Elise gave me a sealed package and asked me to hide it. She said that if anything happened to her, the package would prove who had been following her.
I left the package with Alton Givens.
My eyes moved toward the old man.
“Where is it?”
“Safe deposit box.”
“Which bank?”
Mr. Givens’s lips trembled.
“First Pennsylvania. Box 417.”
Lucan reached for the letter.
I pulled it away.
“Did you follow my mother?”
“I tried to protect her.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Lucan’s eyes filled with desperation.
“I watched the apartment because Sabine had threatened you.”
“Did my mother know?”
“Not at first.”
“When she discovered you, was she afraid?”
He said nothing.
That was an answer.
Sirens approached outside.
Mr. Givens gripped my wrist.
“The key.”
“What key?”
“Odette’s envelope.”
I reached inside the manila envelope.
The small key Mrs. Voss had left was still there.
Lucan stared at it.
“Box 417.”
Detective Ortiz entered the basement with two officers.
An ambulance arrived minutes later.
As paramedics carried Mr. Givens upstairs, Detective Ortiz questioned Lucan.
He denied attacking the old man.
I believed him.
But I no longer knew whether believing anyone was safe.
The medical examiner’s report arrived two days later.
Mrs. Voss had not died in her sleep.
She had been poisoned.
A large quantity of crushed digoxin had been dissolved in the cup of tea beside her bed. The dose had slowed her heart until it stopped.
Detective Ortiz called me to the station.
Lucan was already there.
So were Calder and Bram.
Bram had been arrested after a traffic camera recorded his truck near Mr. Givens’s house. Calder had arrived with two attorneys and refused to answer questions.
Sabine remained in custody on suspicion of evidence tampering after police found several files from Voss Family Press inside her home.
But none of them had been charged with Mrs. Voss’s murder.
Detective Ortiz led me into a small interview room.
A paper cup of water sat on the table.
She closed the door.
“We found the bottle that contained the digoxin.”
“Where?”
“In the trash behind Mrs. Voss’s house.”
“Did it have fingerprints?”
“Yes.”
I expected her to say Sabine.
Or Bram.
Instead, she looked at me.
“Your fingerprints were on the bottle.”
“I handled her medicine.”
“This was not one of her regular prescriptions.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“It was prescribed three months ago to a patient at Jefferson Hospital.”
“Who?”
Detective Ortiz placed a pharmacy receipt on the table.
The purchaser’s name was printed at the top.
MERRICK HALE.
“That’s not possible.”
“The pharmacy has surveillance footage.”
“I didn’t buy it.”
“The person used your student identification.”
“My wallet was stolen at the library three months ago.”
“Did you report it?”
“Yes. Campus security has the report.”
Detective Ortiz slid another photograph across the table.
It showed Mrs. Voss’s bedroom after her death.
On the bedside table rested a torn piece of notebook paper.
The message was written in thick black marker.
The same kind of marker I had used on her medicine bottles.
Merrick knows I changed the deed. He is angry that I will not give him the rest. I am afraid I made a mistake.
“That isn’t her handwriting,” I said.
“We know.”
“Then someone framed me.”
“That is one possibility.”
“What is the other?”
“That you wrote it to look like a poor imitation.”
I stood.
“I want a lawyer.”
“That would be wise.”
Before she opened the door, I remembered the safe deposit key.
“Did you search box 417?”
Detective Ortiz stopped.
“What box?”
I had not told her.
I had planned to go to the bank myself.
Lucan had been the only other person who heard Mr. Givens say the number.
I looked through the glass panel beside the door.
Lucan was standing in the hallway.
He was speaking quietly to another detective.
“Where is the key?” I asked.
Detective Ortiz looked at the evidence envelope containing Mrs. Voss’s belongings.
The small key was gone.
We drove to First Pennsylvania Bank with two officers.
The manager checked the records for box 417.
His expression became uneasy.
“That box was accessed this morning.”
“By whom?” Detective Ortiz asked.
The manager turned his computer screen toward us.
The authorized visitor had signed the digital register at 8:14.
LUKE MERCER.
Every person in the room turned toward Lucan.
“I was at the police station at 8:14,” he said.
Detective Ortiz confirmed it with a phone call.
“Then someone used your identification.”
The manager opened the security footage.
A man wearing a dark coat entered the private vault area. A cap hid most of his face.
He carried Mrs. Voss’s key.
When he turned toward the camera, the image briefly captured the scar along his left cheek.
Lucan touched his own scar.
“That’s impossible.”
The man in the video removed a package from box 417.
Before leaving the vault, he looked directly into the camera.
Then he lifted his right hand.
His little finger curved inward.
Exactly like Lucan’s.
Exactly like mine.
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
The bank manager looked from Lucan to me.
Detective Ortiz replayed the final seconds.
“There are two of you,” I whispered.
Lucan stared at the frozen image.
“No.”
His face filled with a terror I had not seen before.
“There were three babies,” he said.
“What?”
“My mother gave birth to triplets.”
The room became silent.
“Calder, Bram, and I were not born in different years,” Lucan continued. “That was the story my parents told everyone.”
I shook my head.
“Mrs. Voss said you were the youngest of four children.”
“I was raised as the youngest.”
“Why?”
“Because one of the babies was born sick. My father told my mother he died before they left the hospital.”
Lucan stepped closer to the screen.
“But my mother once told me she heard two babies crying after they took him away.”
Detective Ortiz enlarged the man’s face.
He looked almost identical to Lucan.
Older.
Colder.
The same scar had been deliberately cut into his cheek.
My phone vibrated.
A new message had arrived from the unknown number.
It contained a photograph of the package taken from box 417.
Inside were my mother’s notebook, the original police report from her death, and a recent photograph of Mrs. Voss sleeping in her bed.
Beneath the photograph were five words.
YOUR FATHER IS NOT LUCan.
A second message appeared.
LOOK AT THE DNA REPORT AGAIN.
I opened the report Mrs. Voss had left in the manila envelope.
For the first time, I read the laboratory details instead of the bold conclusion.
The sample had not been compared with Lucan’s childhood hair.
The hair had belonged to Lucan’s father.
The test proved that I was related to the Voss family.
It did not prove which Voss man was my father.
The bank’s fire alarm suddenly began screaming.
Lights flashed across the ceiling.
Employees rushed toward the exits.
Smoke poured beneath the vault door.
Detective Ortiz grabbed my arm.
“Move!”
As we ran toward the lobby, Lucan stopped.
On the opposite side of the glass entrance stood the man from the video.
He wore Lucan’s face.
He held my mother’s notebook against his chest.
Then he smiled at me.
The narrow smile I had seen in every photograph.
He raised one hand and pointed at Lucan.
With the other, he pointed at himself.
Then he silently formed three words with his lips.
Ask him who.
The glass doors locked between us.
The stranger turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Lucan stared after him.
I looked at the man I had begun to believe was my father.
“Who is he?”
Lucan’s face crumbled.
“My brother,” he whispered.
“What is his name?”
Lucan looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“His name is Merrick.”
The name my mother had given me.
And before I could ask why, an explosion tore through the bank vault behind us………………
PART 4…
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
