Chapter 5 - REBECCA’S TERMS
Margaret could not breathe.
Daniel looked older than the man she had buried in memory.
His shoulders had narrowed. Deep lines cut across his forehead. There was gray in his hair and blood along one side of his mouth.
But it was him.
The shape of his eyes.
The small scar near his chin.
The way he held his jaw when he was trying not to show fear.
Rebecca stood behind him.
Her face appeared pale in the basement light, almost expressionless.
She looked directly into the camera.
“Margaret,” she said. “I know you’re watching.”
The recording was not live.
A timestamp in the corner showed it had been filmed twenty minutes earlier.
Margaret gripped Thomas’s phone.
Rebecca continued.
“You always believed money could buy answers. Tonight, it can buy time.”
She pressed the gun harder against Daniel’s head.
“Bring the boys to Pier Sixty-Two before midnight. Come alone. Bring the pendant and the key Daniel gave Thomas.”
Thomas cursed under his breath.
Rebecca smiled faintly.
“If you involve the police, your former husband dies. If you refuse, the boys will be blamed for his murder.”
The video ended.
Rain struck the alley pavement.
The officers immediately began speaking into their radios.
Margaret barely heard them.
Noah stared at the black screen.
“That was Dad.”
Eli buried his face against Noah’s shoulder.
Noah did not move.
His body seemed to have forgotten how.
Margaret handed the phone back to Thomas.
“Why does she want the key?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming useless.”
Thomas looked toward the officers.
“We need privacy.”
“You’ve had seventeen years to speak privately.”
“I didn’t know where the boys were.”
“You knew Daniel was alive.”
“Yes.”
Margaret slapped him.
The sound cracked through the alley.
Thomas did not defend himself.
Noah looked at her with wide eyes.
Margaret’s hand stung.
“You let me bury him,” she said. “You let me bury my children.”
“I was told they were dead.”
“By whom?”
“Daniel.”
The name landed like another blow.
Margaret’s anger faltered.
Thomas lowered his voice.
“Three months after the disappearance, Daniel contacted me. He said the boys had died during the escape. He claimed he was being hunted and needed a new identity. He paid me to erase his trail.”
“You believed him?”
“I believed the evidence he showed me.”
“What evidence?”
“Death certificates.”
Margaret laughed once, bitterly.
“I had those too.”
“They were convincing.”
“No. You wanted them to be convincing because he paid you.”
Thomas looked away.
The older officer approached.
“We’ve sent units to the pier and started tracing the video.”
Margaret turned on him.
“She said she would kill Daniel if police were involved.”
“Kidnappers say that to control victims.”
“And sometimes they mean it.”
“We are not allowing you to make an exchange alone.”
Noah stepped forward.
“We know how to get into the basement.”
Everyone looked at him.
Margaret crouched.
“Where is it?”
“No.”
“Noah, your father is tied to a chair.”
“He told us never to tell Rebecca about the tunnel.”
“What tunnel?”
Noah glanced toward the officers.
“Promise they won’t take us back.”
The older officer answered carefully.
“We need to know whether the home is safe.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then you won’t be returned there tonight.”
Noah studied him.
Finally, he said, “The house is in Georgetown. Near the old rail yard.”
Margaret knew the area.
Industrial warehouses.
Abandoned workshops.
A neighborhood transformed unevenly by new development, leaving expensive lofts beside boarded buildings.
“There’s a drainage tunnel behind the fence,” Noah continued. “Dad showed me last winter. It goes under the basement wall.”
“Why did he show you?”
“He said if Rebecca ever stopped pretending, we had to leave through it.”
Margaret felt cold despite the blazer around her shoulders.
“How long had he been afraid of her?”
Noah’s lips parted.
Before he could answer, the younger officer’s radio crackled.
A dispatcher reported that the address associated with Rebecca Mercer had been cleared out.
No furniture.
No clothing.
No basement.
No sign that children had ever lived there.
Noah shook his head.
“That’s not our house.”
The officer read the address aloud.
Noah looked confused.
“That’s Aunt Rebecca’s other house.”
Margaret went still.
“How many houses does she have?”
“Three.”
Thomas swore again.
Margaret looked at him.
“Daniel was moving them.”
“Or hiding them.”
Noah heard.
“My dad protected us.”
“Then why did he tell you I was dead?”
Noah stared at the pendant beneath her fingers.
“I don’t know.”
The older officer asked Noah for the correct address.
He gave it.
This time, the dispatcher remained silent for several seconds.
Then came the reply.
The property was owned by a shell corporation.
Margaret recognized the corporation’s name.
May you like
Hayes Strategic Holdings.
Her own company owned the house where Daniel had hidden the boys.
