Chapter 11 - DANIELThe truth didn't feel real.
It couldn't.
Daniel Mercer was the man who had destroyed my family.
The man who stole money.
The man who manipulated my mother.
The man who had spent years building a counterfeit version of my life.
And now my mother was telling me he was my biological father.
I couldn't breathe.
Ethan asked, “Are you certain?”
My mother nodded.
“Lauren is Daniel's daughter.”
Victoria was still on the phone.
I heard her gasp.
“No.”
I looked at her.
She was crying.
“What?”
“Daniel told me you were his greatest mistake.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
I asked my mother why she had lied.
She answered simply.
“Because Vera was pregnant with you when she was with your father.”
“Then why would Daniel know?”
“He knew.”
“And he wanted me?”
“He wanted what you represented.”
“What?”
“The Mercer inheritance.”
Everything finally made sense.
Daniel couldn't access Vera's family fortune while Vera was alive.
But after her death, the inheritance was supposed to pass to her child.
If that child was mine.
Daniel could not claim it directly.
So he needed me controlled.
He needed my identity unstable.
He needed Victoria as a beneficiary.
He needed fake records.
He needed a fake version of me.
And he needed the real me to look unreliable.
Then Ethan found the final clause.
A Mercer family trust.
The biological child inherited everything at age thirty-five.
I was thirty.
Five years remained.
Daniel had five years to control me.
Or eliminate me.
I stared at the document.
“How did he know I would sell the penthouse?”
“Because he was monitoring your finances.”
“How?”
“Through me.”
My mother's answer stunned me.
“What?”
She cried.
“I gave him information.”
“You betrayed me.”
“I was trying to delay him.”
“You gave him access.”
“I thought I could control him.”
“You couldn't.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“I couldn't.”
Ethan stepped in.
“Where is Daniel now?”
My mother hesitated.
Then she said:
“D.C.”
“Where?”
“The cemetery.”
Again.
Victoria's voice came through the phone.
“The cemetery?”
“Yes.”
My mother looked at me.
“Your father's grave isn't your father's grave.”
“What?”
“The man buried there…”
She swallowed.
“Was Daniel's brother.”
I felt sick.
“Then where is my father's body?”
She shook her head.
“We never found it.”
Silence.
Then Ethan's phone vibrated.
He read the message.
“Lauren.”
“What?”
“We have movement.”
“Where?”
“Arlington Cemetery.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
My heart stopped.
“The woman pretending to be you.”
We watched the live feed.
A woman in a black coat approached the grave.
She knelt.
Placed a flower.
Then looked directly into the camera.
Not accidentally.
Not briefly.
Directly.
She smiled.
It was my face.
But her eyes were different.
She lifted a piece of paper.
One sentence.
COME ALONE, LAUREN.
Ethan reached for his weapon.
“We're not going.”
I watched the woman stand.
She turned toward the camera one last time.
Then she mouthed two words.
I remember.
My stomach tightened.
Because I didn't know what she remembered.
May you like
But she apparently knew everything about me.
And she wanted me alone.
