Vanessa did not faint completely.
Dad caught her beneath the arms before her knees struck the floor, and for several seconds she hung against him, breathing in short, broken gasps.
“My son.”
“I know.”
“My son, Dad.”
“I know.”
Dad lowered her into the nearest chair.
Sheriff Mercer was already issuing orders.
She asked Vanessa for her son’s full name.
“Ethan Cole.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Vehicle?”
“Gray Honda Accord. Illinois plates.”
“Employer?”
Vanessa answered each question mechanically.
Then Mercer asked when she had last spoken to him.
“Sunday.”
“What time?”
“Evening. Maybe seven.”
“Anything unusual?”
“No.”
“Did he mention Grant?”
Vanessa looked up.
“Yes.”
Dad’s attention sharpened.
“What?”
“He said Grant called him.”
“When?”
“Saturday.”
“What did Grant want?”
Vanessa pressed her fingertips against her temples.
“I don’t know. Ethan said his father was being strange.”
Mercer leaned closer.
“Strange how?”
“He asked whether Ethan still had the boxes from Grandma.”
My stomach tightened.
“Mom’s things?”
Vanessa nodded.
“When we cleaned out some closets after Mom died, I gave Ethan a few boxes. Photos. Books. Old Christmas decorations.”
Dad looked at me.
Again, Grant had been searching for old family material before this crisis began.
“What did Ethan tell him?”
“That he didn’t know what Grant meant.”
“Was that true?”
“I think so.”
Mercer contacted Chicago investigators and requested an immediate search of Ethan’s apartment, building footage, vehicle records, financial activity and phone location.
Vanessa stared at her silent phone.
“Grant did this.”
Mercer did not answer.
Vanessa’s head snapped up.
“Say it.”
“I’m not going to tell you something before I can prove it.”
“He threatened Dad. He watched Natalie. He tried to kill Harold.”
“We have evidence connecting people around Grant to those events.”
“That means Grant.”
“It may.”
Vanessa stood.
“My son is missing.”
Her voice rose.
“I do not care whether the sentence is courtroom-perfect.”
Mercer met her anger without flinching.
“I do. Because courtroom-perfect is how we keep whoever did this from walking away.”
Vanessa’s mouth closed.
Dad put a hand on her shoulder.
This time she did not pull away.
Chicago officers found Ethan’s car three blocks from his apartment.
It was legally parked.
The driver’s door was locked.
No visible damage.
A parking garage camera showed Ethan arriving home the previous evening at 8:17.
He entered his building alone.
At 10:42, a delivery driver entered carrying a large insulated bag.
The driver never appeared on the lobby camera leaving.
At 11:06, Ethan appeared again.
He wore a dark jacket.
His hands were in his pockets.
A second man walked behind him.
The image quality was poor.
But the second man had a thin build.
Dark hair.
And something visible beneath one ear.
A scar.
“Neil,” Vanessa whispered.
The man Marcus Vale had described.
Grant’s occasional driver.
The person who may have searched my apartment.
Mercer sent the still image statewide.
Chicago detectives tracked the delivery bag.
It belonged to a restaurant two miles away.
The restaurant had not sent anyone to Ethan’s building.
The bag had been stolen from an employee’s car earlier that evening.
“He planned the disguise,” I said.
Mercer nodded.
“And knew the building.”
Dad looked toward Vanessa.
“How would he know Ethan’s address?”
“Grant has it.”
“Anyone else?”
“Family.”
“That list isn’t comforting anymore.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Dad regretted the comment.
He crouched beside her.
“We’ll find him.”
She stared at him.
“Don’t promise me that.”
Dad’s mouth tightened.
She knew now what promises could cost.
Mercer’s team examined the photograph left on Ethan’s table.
It showed Mom standing beside her old garden fence.
I remembered the day.
Late summer.
She had been cutting tomatoes when Dad took the picture.
Except this version was cropped differently.
There was something behind Mom.
A child’s bicycle.
Red.
Dad stared.
“That’s Ethan’s.”
Vanessa looked closer.
“He was six.”
“So the photograph came from you?” Mercer asked.
“No.”
“Dad?”
He shook his head.
“The original album stayed at the house.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“Grant took some albums after the funeral.”
Of course he did.
But another detail bothered me.
The photograph was printed recently.
Modern photo paper.
High-resolution scan.
Someone had digitized the original.
Mercer asked technicians to examine the image.
On the back was a faint printer code.
It identified a commercial photo printer.
A twenty-four-hour pharmacy chain.
The print had been made two nights earlier.
Near Grant’s office.
Security footage showed the customer.
Not Neil.
A woman.
Baseball cap.
Glasses.
Long coat.
Vanessa stared at the still.
“I know her.”
“Who?”
“Caroline Webb.”
The notary whose stamp had supposedly been stolen.
Mercer’s eyes sharpened.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Dad leaned closer.
“Why would a notary be printing Eleanor’s photograph?”
Vanessa looked sick.
“Because her stamp wasn’t stolen.”
Caroline Webb had notarized documents for Grant for years.
Vanessa had seen her at the office dozens of times.
The stolen-stamp report had been filed only after the forged trust amendment was created.
Another layer.
Another person positioned to claim victimhood if the fraud surfaced.
Mercer ordered Caroline located.
Her house was empty.
Phone disconnected.
Bank activity showed a cash withdrawal that morning.
Twenty thousand dollars.
Dad looked at the amount.
“Running money.”
“Possibly.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“She knows where Ethan is.”
“We don’t know that.”
“She knows Neil.”
“How?”
“They were together once.”
“When?”
“Grant’s Christmas party. Two years ago.”
Mercer requested archived photographs from the event.
Vanessa still had several on social media.
One showed Caroline near the bar.
Behind her stood Neil.
His face clearer than any image investigators had obtained.
Facial recognition through law-enforcement databases produced a match.
Neil Mercer.
Sheriff Mercer stared at the name.
Dad noticed first.
“Mercer?”
The sheriff’s face became still.
“No relation that I know of.”
The file showed his full name.
Neil Andrew Mercer.
Thirty-eight.
Born locally.
Juvenile record sealed.
Military service.
Private security work.
Then almost nothing.
Mercer requested birth records.
Her expression changed when they arrived.
Neil’s mother was Rebecca Mercer.
Sheriff Mercer sat down.
Dad watched her.
“Who is Rebecca?”
“My sister.”
Nobody spoke.
Mercer stared at the screen.
“My sister left when she was nineteen.”
“Did you know she had a son?”
“No.”
“Where is she?”
“Dead.”
“When?”
“Twenty-six years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“Who handled the funeral?”
Mercer looked at him.
We all knew before she answered.
“Harold Pike.”
The room changed.
Mercer called for another investigator to take operational command.
She did it without hesitation.
“This now touches my family. I remain involved as sheriff, but Major Crimes makes the decisions regarding Neil.”
Dad studied her.
“You really didn’t know?”
She looked at him.
“No.”
He nodded.
That was enough.
Records showed Rebecca Mercer’s funeral had been handled by Pike Memorial Services.
No autopsy.
Single-vehicle crash.
Closed-casket funeral.
Neil, twelve at the time, had supposedly gone to live with his father.
But the listed father did not exist.
Social Security number invalid.
Address false.
“Harold created the record,” Mercer said.
“Why?”
Nobody knew.
Then the excavation team at Harold’s cabin called.
The remains in the old well included at least four people.
One skeleton appeared to belong to a woman.
Estimated age at death: late teens to mid-twenties.
Buried approximately twenty-five years ago.
Mercer’s face lost all color.
“No.”
Dad stood.
“Don’t assume.”
She looked at him.
For once, he repeated her own rule.
“Evidence first.”
Mercer swallowed.
“Yes.”
But we all understood the possibility.
Rebecca may never have died in a car crash.
The funeral may have been staged.
Neil may have spent his childhood believing a fabricated story.
And Harold may have known exactly what happened.
A Chicago detective called.
They had traced Ethan’s phone.
It had briefly connected to a tower outside Gary, Indiana, shortly after midnight.
Then again near an abandoned industrial district.
Mercer ordered the location sent to federal agents.
Vanessa stood.
“I’m going.”
“No,” Dad and Mercer said together.
She glared.
Dad moved in front of her.
“You are not driving into an abandoned industrial district looking for the man who took your son.”
“He needs me.”
“He needs you alive.”
Her face crumpled.
Dad put both hands on her shoulders.
“You already know what happens when panic makes the decision.”
That stopped her.
It was harsh.
But unlike earlier, it was not punishment.
It was instruction.
Vanessa lowered herself back into the chair.
The search team entered the industrial building forty minutes later.
No Ethan.
But someone had been there recently.
Food containers.
Zip ties.
A chair bolted to the floor.
Blood.
Not much.
Enough to test.
And one message written on cardboard.
ASK HAROLD ABOUT REBECCA.
Mercer read it twice.
Then she called the hospital.
Harold was still alive.
Still under guard.
She requested an immediate interview.
Before leaving, she looked at Vanessa.
“We found something else.”
“What?”
“A train schedule.”
My pulse quickened.
“For where?”
“Three departures were circled.”
Chicago.
Detroit.
And Cleveland.
Dad frowned.
“Why three?”
Mercer held up another evidence photograph.
Beside each destination was a name.
Chicago: Ethan.
Detroit: Caroline.
Cleveland: Neil.
Three people moving in different directions.
A diversion.
Or an escape plan.
Then another photograph arrived.
A trash can from the warehouse.
Inside was Ethan’s jacket.
Vanessa covered her mouth.
The forensic technician turned it over.
Pinned beneath the collar was a handwritten note.
Not Grant’s handwriting.
Not Neil’s.
Harold’s.
Dad recognized it immediately.
The note contained four words.
Neil must never know.
Click here to continue reading: PART 18: Harold Finally Explained What Happened to Sheriff Mercer’s Sister, and the Truth Turned Neil From Grant’s Enforcer Into Something More Dangerous
My Sister Announced Our Father’s Death Before Sunrise, but the Man Eating Breakfast in My Kitchen Had Other Plans
Part 17 of 50
