Chapter 15 - THE LAST DOORThree weeks later, Austin was still talking about the Mercer scandal.
News helicopters hovered over the rail district.
Federal investigators sealed Building 14.
Courthouses filled with records.
Families appeared on television holding copies of property documents that had been hidden for years.
The Mirror was no longer a secret.
But James couldn't stop thinking about Elena's final note.
The Mirror was never the real secret.
He sat at his kitchen table with Connor and Elliot.
The address was between them.
It led to an old private freight facility outside the United States.
A warehouse that had officially been abandoned twelve years earlier.
Connor stared at the map.
"My mom drew that place."
"Do you remember anything?"
Connor nodded.
"She said never to go there."
James studied him.
"Why?"
"Because that's where they kept the names."
"What names?"
Connor shook his head.
"I don't know."
Elliot leaned over the table.
"The names of people who disappeared?"
Connor looked up.
"No."
He touched the map.
"The names of people who were supposed to disappear."
James understood.
The Mirror had not simply changed ownership records.
It had created replacement lives.
People who officially did not exist.
Children.
Workers.
Witnesses.
Entire families.
The system extended beyond Texas.
Possibly beyond America.
James looked at Marianne.
"You knew."
She nodded.
"I was trying to find the source."
"Who?"
She hesitated.
"The person who created the first identity."
James frowned.
"Whose?"
Marianne placed a folder on the table.
James opened it.
Inside was a birth certificate.
Connor.
Another.
Elliot.
Then one more.
James Mercer.
He stared.
The document listed his date of birth.
His father's name.
His mother's name.
But the hospital was wrong.
James looked at Marianne.
"This isn't real."
"No."
"Then what is it?"
Marianne's voice was quiet.
"Your father's final discovery."
James's hands shook.
"He wasn't your biological father?"
Marianne nodded.
James looked at her in disbelief.
"Then who was?"
She slid another photograph across the table.
James picked it up.
It showed a hospital room.
Two newborn babies.
Two mothers.
And a doctor standing between them.
On the back:
PROJECT MIRROR, SUBJECT 001 AND SUBJECT 002.
James looked at Connor.
Then Elliot.
Then the photograph.
"Which baby was me?"
Marianne didn't answer.
Elliot slowly lowered the paper.
"Dad..."
Connor looked scared.
James stood.
"No."
The front door opened.
A federal agent rushed inside.
"We have a problem."
James turned.
"What?"
"The warehouse address."
"What about it?"
"The site was searched this morning."
"And?"
The agent hesitated.
"Someone was already waiting for us."
James's heart sank.
"Who?"
The agent handed him a photograph.
James looked at it.
The warehouse.
A red door.
And a man standing outside.
Not Richard.
Not Victor.
Not Adrian.
A man James had never seen.
But beneath the photograph was a handwritten sentence.
You fed Connor because you thought he was a stranger.
James read the next line.
He was your brother.
Silence filled the room.
Connor stared at James.
Elliot stared at the photograph.
Marianne closed her eyes.
James whispered:
"That's impossible."
The agent shook his head.
"No."
He pointed toward Connor.
"That's what the DNA report says."
James looked at the nine-year-old boy who had been eating a stranger's half-finished burger from a trash can three weeks earlier.
The boy who had been treated like he didn't exist.
The boy whose mother had died trying to protect him.
The boy whose uncle had risked everything to save him.
The boy James had thought was a stranger.
Connor stared back.
Then he said something that made James's blood run cold.
"My mom told me you wouldn't remember me."
James froze.
"Remember you?"
Connor nodded.
"When we were babies..."
He looked toward Marianne.
"She told me we were separated."
James couldn't speak.
Connor pointed at the photograph.
"There are two babies because there were always two."
Then someone knocked on the front door.
Three slow knocks.
Everyone in the house froze.
The federal agent reached for his weapon.
James moved in front of Connor.
Another knock.
Then a man's voice came through the door.
"Mr. Mercer."
James looked at Marianne.
She was crying.
"You know that voice?"
She nodded.
"I prayed he was dead."
James stared at the door.
"Who is he?"
Marianne whispered:
"Your real father."
The doorknob began to turn.
May you like
And this time, James did not wait for someone to tell him what was behind the door.
He reached for it himself.
