Chapter 10 - THE HIDDEN FLOORMy mother gave Ethan an address.
An abandoned office building in Baltimore.
Three floors.
Empty for years.
Except it wasn't.
The building had a hidden basement.
And beneath that basement was something the blueprints didn't show.
A fourth level.
A private archive.
We entered at dawn.
Boxes lined the walls.
Documents.
Hard drives.
Photographs.
Passports.
Medical records.
Identity documents.
Entire lives reduced to paperwork.
Ethan walked slowly through the room.
“Daniel built this.”
My mother nodded.
“He had files on everyone.”
I saw a cabinet labeled:
BENNETT
Another:
MERCER
Another:
VANCE
I stopped.
“Why is your name here?”
Ethan's expression hardened.
“Open it.”
Inside were photographs of Ethan from years earlier.
His home.
His family.
His old assignments.
I looked at him.
“This isn't just about me.”
“No.”
“It never was.”
He flipped through the folder.
Daniel had been monitoring Ethan because of an old investigation.
Years earlier, Ethan had worked a case involving financial fraud across several states.
Daniel had narrowly escaped prosecution.
And Ethan had never realized the missing suspect was the same man now targeting me.
Then we found the most disturbing folder.
SUBSTITUTE
Inside were dozens of photographs.
Women who looked vaguely like me.
Some with plastic surgery records.
Some with altered hair.
Some with forged IDs.
But one woman appeared repeatedly.
Same face.
Same body.
Same scar.
The woman in the surveillance footage.
Ethan studied her photograph.
“This isn't an impersonator.”
“What?”
“She is related to you.”
“How?”
He turned another page.
A DNA chart.
My blood.
Vera's.
My father's.
And another unknown female.
The unknown woman shared significant genetic markers with me.
Not enough to be my twin.
But enough to be a close relative.
“Who is she?”
My mother whispered:
“My sister.”
I turned.
“Your sister?”
“Vera.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Vera was my half-sister.”
The room went silent.
My mother had kept another secret.
She hadn't just known Vera.
She was related to her.
Which meant I had not inherited merely money.
I had inherited a family war.
My mother kept talking.
“Vera had another child.”
My breath caught.
“Who?”
She pointed to the photograph.
“The woman who has been pretending to be you.”
I looked again.
The resemblance was undeniable.
“What is her name?”
My mother shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Ethan checked the records.
The woman had used twelve identities.
But one name appeared before all the others.
Elise Mercer.
Daniel's daughter.
My cousin.
And apparently my biological half-sibling.
The room suddenly felt too small.
Elise had been missing for seventeen years.
Officially dead.
Unofficially alive.
Working with Daniel.
And capable of becoming me.
Then a phone rang.
Not mine.
Not Ethan's.
A landline at the back of the archive.
Everyone froze.
It rang again.
I moved toward it.
Ethan caught my arm.
“Don't.”
The phone rang a third time.
Then stopped.
A printer in the corner suddenly came alive.
One page emerged.
I picked it up.
It was a photograph.
My face.
Taken from inside the hotel in London.
On the back, one sentence:
Elise is not your greatest threat.
Then another page printed.
A photograph of Victoria.
Standing beside a grave.
Then another.
My mother.
And finally, one of me.
At the bottom:
ASK WHO YOUR FATHER REALLY WAS.
Ethan looked at my mother.
She began crying.
“You already know,” I whispered.
My mother nodded.
“Yes.”
“Who was my biological father?”
May you like
She closed her eyes.
“Daniel Mercer.”
