Chapter 6: The Daughter Victor Hawthorne Never Knew He Had
The room went silent.
Not the ordinary kind of silence.
The kind that follows a gunshot.
No one breathed.
No one moved.
My father's handwriting remained unmistakable beneath the faded photograph.
Victor never knew she was his daughter.
I read the sentence again.
Then again.
Hoping the words would somehow rearrange themselves into something that made sense.
They didn't.
"That's impossible."
The words escaped before I realized I had spoken them.
Officer Bruce Jackson slowly picked up the photograph.
The little girl couldn't have been more than six.
Golden hair tied into uneven pigtails.
A missing front tooth.
A stuffed rabbit tucked beneath one arm.
She was smiling at whoever stood behind the camera.
She looked happy.
Normal.
Nothing about the picture suggested she would one day become the center of a conspiracy spanning three decades.
Daniel broke the silence.
"The woman beside her..."
He pointed.
"...isn't Marissa's mother."
I frowned.
"How do you know?"
"I already investigated her family."
He reached into his messenger bag and produced another file.
Marissa's birth certificate.
School records.
Hospital records.
Family photographs.
The woman in those records had dark hair.
The woman in my father's photograph was blonde.
They were different people.
Officer Jackson looked at us.
"Then either your father made a mistake..."
"...or someone changed Marissa's identity."
I felt sick.
For three days, I had believed my wife was a liar.
A thief.
A woman who had destroyed our marriage for money.
Now...
I wasn't even sure I knew her real name.
Daniel quickly spread every document across the conference table.
"Look at the dates."
I leaned closer.
Marissa's official birth certificate had been issued when she was almost four years old.
Not at birth.
Four years later.
Jackson noticed it too.
"That's unusual."
Daniel nodded.
"Very unusual."
He looked through another folder.
"There was also an adoption filing."
"What?"
"It was sealed."
He pointed toward the court number.
"The adoption records disappeared twenty-eight years ago."
Someone had erased them.
Legally.
Completely.
The room suddenly felt colder.
"My father knew."
Daniel nodded.
"He didn't just know."
"He was protecting her."
Officer Jackson slowly closed the journal.
"Which means Thomas Mercer spent thirty years protecting Victor Hawthorne's daughter..."
"...from Victor Hawthorne."
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
Everyone looked at it.
I answered.
"This is Ethan."
Heavy breathing.
Then...
"Ethan?"
I stood so quickly my chair tipped backward.
"Marissa?"
No one else spoke.
Her voice sounded weak.
Exhausted.
As though she hadn't slept in days.
"You found the box."
My heartbeat stopped.
"You knew?"
"I prayed you would."
Tears filled my eyes despite everything.
"Where are you?"
"I don't have much time."
"Tell me where you are."
"They're watching."
"Who?"
Silence.
Then she whispered,
"My father."
Officer Jackson immediately activated speakerphone.
"Marissa."
"This is Detective Jackson."
"We can protect you."
She laughed bitterly.
"No one has protected me since I was six years old."
Daniel's eyes widened.
Six.
The age in the photograph.
"Ethan..."
Her voice trembled.
"I never wanted you involved."
I closed my eyes.
"You married me."
"I know."
"Was any of it real?"
The silence lasted so long I almost regretted asking.
Then...
"I was supposed to steal your father's journal."
"What changed?"
"I met you."
A tear slid down my face.
"I tried to leave."
She was crying now.
"I tried so many times."
Officer Jackson quietly motioned for another detective to begin tracing the call.
Every second mattered.
"Marissa."
I spoke as calmly as I could.
"The woman who died..."
"Rebecca."
"I'm sorry."
Her breathing became uneven.
"She wasn't supposed to die."
"What happened?"
"Victor found out she was helping me."
My stomach tightened.
"He killed her?"
"No."
Another pause.
"But he ordered someone else to."
Daniel suddenly froze while watching the trace computer.
He mouthed silently.
Ten seconds.
Keep her talking.
"Marissa."
"Listen to me."
"Your father..."
She interrupted.
"Don't call him that."
Her voice hardened.
"He isn't my father."
"He donated DNA."
"That's all."
I swallowed.
"Did he know who you were?"
"No."
"He thought my mother disappeared."
"What really happened?"
Another long silence.
Finally...
"He paid someone to make her disappear."
The trace technician raised three fingers.
Three seconds.
"Ethan."
Her voice became desperate.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"The company..."
"What about it?"
"Hawthorne Capital isn't the real company."
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"It's only the front."
"For what?"
She whispered three words.
"The Covenant Group."
The call ended.
Every phone in the room fell silent.
The technician looked up.
"I got it."
"Location?"
He stared at the screen.
Then frowned.
"That's strange."
"What?"
"The signal came from..."
He looked directly at Officer Jackson.
"...inside St. Matthew's Cemetery."
Twenty minutes later...
Six police vehicles surrounded the old cemetery on the outskirts of the city.
Rain fell harder than ever.
The gates stood partially open.
Officer Jackson drew his weapon.
"No one goes anywhere alone."
Flashlights cut through the darkness.
Rows of weathered headstones stretched into the distance.
Wind rustled ancient oak trees.
The place felt abandoned.
Except...
A single light glowed inside the caretaker's chapel.
Jackson motioned us forward.
One officer kicked open the wooden door.
Empty.
No furniture.
No caretaker.
Just an old folding chair.
A disposable cellphone.
Still warm.
Marissa had been there only minutes earlier.
Daniel searched the room.
"Ethan."
I turned.
He held up a child's stuffed rabbit.
Old.
Faded.
One button eye missing.
The same rabbit from the photograph.
Lying beside it...
Was another envelope.
Addressed to me.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Not from my father.
From Marissa.
Ethan,
If you're reading this, I'm already gone.
I'm sorry for every lie.
But there is one truth I need you to believe.
I never married you because Victor ordered it.
I stayed because loving you became the only honest thing in my life.
A photograph slipped from the envelope.
It showed Marissa standing outside our first apartment.
She didn't know anyone was taking the picture.
She was smiling while looking through the kitchen window.
At me.
On the back she had written:
This was the day I decided to betray him.
I stared at the words until they blurred through my tears.
Then Officer Jackson's radio exploded with frantic voices.
"Shots fired!"
"Repeat—shots fired!"
"Suspect vehicle heading east from the cemetery!"
Jackson grabbed his radio.
"Who's been hit?"
The dispatcher answered immediately.
The words echoed through the chapel like another death sentence.
"Possible victim identified as..."
A pause.
"...Marissa Mercer."
The note slipped from my fingers.
May you like
And before anyone could stop me...
I was already running into the rain.
