Outside, two dark vehicles were parked near the fence.
One accelerated toward them.
State investigators shouted warnings as the vehicle sped away.
The second remained stationary for a moment.
Then its rear door opened.
A man stepped out.
He was older, wearing a dark overcoat, with silver hair and a familiar face.
Marcus recognized him from the photographs.
Paul Mercer.
The retired detective who had supposedly died three years earlier.
Rebecca stared at him.
“Mr. Mercer?”
The man looked at her with deep sadness.
“You look just like your father.”
Rebecca took one step forward.
“You knew him?”
Mercer nodded.
“I was the last person who saw him alive.”
Marcus moved closer.
“Then you need to tell us what happened.”
Mercer looked toward the street.
“Not here. We have very little time.”
Elena raised her weapon slightly.
“Detective Mercer, you're coming with us.”
He lifted both hands.
“I expected that.”
“Then explain yourself.”
Mercer looked at Rebecca.
“Your father didn't die at the warehouse.”
Rebecca's eyes widened.
“What?”
“He was taken somewhere else. Somewhere the mayor believed nobody would ever search.”
Marcus felt his chest tighten.
“Where?”
Mercer glanced toward the dark vehicles disappearing down the road.
Then he said the words that changed everything.
“Thomas Reed was transferred to a private medical facility outside Brookhaven. The official records say he died that night, but I never saw a body. I never signed a death certificate. And I have reason to believe someone helped him escape.”
Rebecca's voice was barely audible.
“Are you saying my father might still be alive?”
Mercer looked at her.
“I can't promise you that.”
He paused.
“But I can tell you this. Ten years ago, someone made a decision to erase Thomas Reed from the records. And the person who helped them do it was not Mayor Caldwell.”
Marcus frowned.
“Who was it?”
Mercer looked toward the old building.
“Someone much closer to your investigation than you realize.”
Before he could continue, a phone rang.
It was Elena's.
She answered.
“Ramirez.”
A state investigator spoke urgently.
“Ma'am, we have a serious problem. The evidence room at the state office has been breached.”
Elena's face tightened.
“What was taken?”
“The copy of the eighth recording. The original documents from the Reed case. And the witness protection file.”
Marcus felt the blood drain from his face.
“Rebecca's file?”
“Yes.”
Elena looked at Mercer.
“Whoever did this knew exactly what to take.”
Mercer nodded grimly.
“Then they've found out what I spent ten years trying to keep hidden.”
“What?” Marcus asked.
Mercer looked at Rebecca.
“The identity of the person who helped your father disappear.”
Rebecca gripped the photograph.
“Who was it?”
Mercer opened his mouth.
But before he could answer, a shot rang out from the far end of the courtyard.
The bullet struck the metal fence inches from his shoulder.
Elena shouted for everyone to take cover.
Mercer grabbed Rebecca's arm and pulled her behind a concrete pillar.
“Listen to me,” he said urgently. “If anything happens to me, find the woman named Evelyn Shaw. She was the nurse who signed your father's transfer papers.”
“Where do I find her?” Rebecca cried.
Mercer looked at her.
“She works at the private facility where your father was taken.”
Another shot struck the pavement.
The investigators returned fire, and the attackers retreated toward their vehicles.
Elena ordered everyone to move.
As they escaped through the courtyard gate, Marcus looked back at the records building.
The door to Room 417 stood open.
Inside, the documents that Thomas Reed had hidden for ten years were now in the hands of state investigators.
But the most important secret remained unanswered.
Had Thomas Reed died?
Or had someone secretly helped him escape?
Rebecca climbed into the state vehicle, still holding the photograph.
She looked at her father's smiling face.
For ten years, she had believed that the past was something she could only mourn.
Now it had become something she could pursue.
And somewhere beyond Brookhaven, a woman named Evelyn Shaw might hold the answer to the question that had haunted her entire life.
Whether her father had ever stopped fighting to come home.
Marcus had never seen Rebecca look so frightened.
She sat in the back of the state investigator's vehicle, clutching the photograph of her father with both hands. Her mother sat beside her, one arm wrapped around her shoulders. Outside, Elena Ramirez spoke rapidly into her phone, coordinating additional security and requesting an emergency meeting with the state prosecutor.
Paul Mercer sat in the vehicle behind them.