Chapter 4 - The House Beneath the HouseSome families bury secrets. Mine built foundations over them.
Michael drove me back to the Mercer estate.
I hated every second of it.
The estate sat outside Lancaster behind iron gates and twenty acres of winter trees.
I'd grown up there.
My father, Thomas Mercer, had built the original house himself.
At least that's what I had been told.
The house hadn't changed much.
Marble floors.
Dark wood.
Portraits of dead Mercers lining the hall.
Rebecca used to joke that the place looked like a museum where nobody wanted to be remembered.
I hadn't understood what she meant.
Now I did.
Michael led me to the library.
“You said Rebecca's letter mentioned the house.”
“She said the truth was buried beneath it.”
Michael looked at the fireplace.
“When I was twenty, Dad showed me something.”
“What?”
“A room.”
“Where?”
“Below the library.”
I stared at him.
“There is no basement beneath the library.”
“There is.”
He pressed his thumb against the mantel.
A hidden latch clicked.
The stone wall shifted.
A narrow stairway appeared.
I stared down into darkness.
“You knew this existed?”
Michael nodded.
“Rebecca discovered it.”
“How?”
“She followed Dad.”
I walked down.
The air smelled of wet stone and old paper.
At the bottom was a steel door.
Michael entered a six-digit code.
The door opened.
Inside were filing cabinets.
Boxes.
Photographs.
Bank ledgers.
Birth certificates.
Court documents.
And an entire wall covered in names.
Mercer.
Parker.
Reed.
Collins.
Dozens of families.
I pulled a file.
PARKER, HANNAH.
Inside was a hospital record.
Then another.
A photograph of Hannah at nineteen.
And finally, a birth certificate.
Mother: Hannah Parker.
Father:
Daniel Thomas Mercer.
I stopped breathing.
Michael looked away.
“No.”
I flipped the page.
The father's name had been crossed out.
Underneath, someone had written:
Do not disclose.
My hands trembled.
“Whose birth certificate?”
Michael didn't answer.
I pulled another document.
This time it was for Lucy.
Mother: Hannah Parker.
Father:
Unknown.
But attached behind it was a private laboratory report.
DNA relationship probability:
99.98%
The test was between Lucy Parker and me.
I dropped the folder.
Michael closed his eyes.
“You’re her father.”
The words didn't make sense.
“I've never met her.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Rebecca found the records six months before she died.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“Because she discovered something else.”
“What?”
Michael looked toward the wall of names.
“She wasn't investigating Lucy.”
He pointed to another folder.
She was investigating the Mercer family.
And in the center of that wall was one name circled in red.
THOMAS MERCER.
My dead father.
I pulled open the oldest file.
Inside was a letter written twenty-four years earlier.
Rebecca's handwriting appeared on the final page.
Daniel, Lucy isn't the secret. She's the proof.
Then I heard footsteps above us.
Slow.
Measured.
Coming down the staircase.
Michael reached for his gun.
I stared at the doorway.
A woman's voice echoed through the room.
“Daniel?”
I knew that voice.
May you like
My knees nearly gave out.
Rebecca.
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