Chapter 8 - The Father Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Mara read the message three times. Her father did not die in that motel. She had seen him there. She remembered the sheriff’s deputy, the white sheet, the plastic bag containing his watch and wallet.
She remembered signing papers because she was the only family member who could be reached. Yet the message carried a photograph. It showed a man standing outside a train station in Montreal, his face turned partly away. He was older, thinner, and gray at the temples, but the scar above his right eyebrow was unmistakable.
Simon Hart. Mara’s knees weakened. Julian reached for her.
“What is it?”
She handed him the phone. Peter looked over his shoulder.
“That could be fabricated.”
“The scar isn’t,” Mara said.
Elena sat heavily on the station steps.
“Simon was alive when Gideon died.”
Mara turned toward her.
“You knew?”
“I knew Charles claimed he had left town. I did not know where he went.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin?”
Elena’s voice broke.
“Charles told me Simon had taken the money and fled. He said if I told you, he would have you arrested as an accomplice.”
Mara backed away. The grief she had carried for seventeen years shifted inside her, no longer a solid stone but a cavern with no bottom. Julian studied the photograph.
“Who sent it?”
Another message appeared. ASK ELENA WHO PAID FOR THE MOTEL ROOM. Mara lifted her eyes. Elena began to cry.
“Charles,” she whispered.
The pieces rearranged themselves. Her father had not died in a motel. Charles had staged the death to remove him as a witness, then used the forged records to make Mara believe she had no one left to defend her. But why reveal him now?
“He wants me frightened,” Mara said.
“He wants you to chase the wrong person,” Julian replied.
Peter looked toward the tree line.
“Or he wants you to know Simon can be used against you.”
The radio on the ranger station wall crackled. A ranger’s voice came through, reporting a vehicle found abandoned near the old rail bridge. Inside was Dr. Voss’s medical bag and a bloodstained coat.
No body. Julian rose carefully.
“We need to reach Nora.”
“The ranger station can send the files,” Peter said.
“Not if Charles is monitoring the radio.”
Mara turned the phone over in her hand.
“The messages are coming through a prepaid number. Whoever sent them knows where we are, but they may not be with Charles.”
“You think Simon sent them?”
“I think my father wants me to find him.”
Elena gripped her coat.
“You cannot go after him.”
Mara looked at her.
“You lost the right to decide what I can survive.”
The ranger who arrived an hour later was a woman named Lena Ortiz. She was compact, sharp-eyed, and suspicious in a way Mara appreciated. Peter explained the situation while Lena examined the broken windows and the bloodless coat.
“I can take you to a safe facility,” Lena said.
“But if this involves the Hartwell family, my authority ends at the county line.”
“Nora Bell is expecting evidence,” Mara said.
“Then send it.”
Mara held up the phone.
“The files are too large for the signal here.”
Lena considered them.
“There is an old maintenance office at the rail depot. It has a wired connection. We can reach it by service road.”
They loaded into Lena’s truck. Julian sat beside Mara in the back, his shoulder pressed to hers whenever the truck hit a rut. He was silent for most of the drive.
“You believe the photograph?” she asked.
“I believe someone wants us to.”
“That is not an answer.”
He looked at her.
“I believe your father may be alive. I also believe Charles has spent years turning truth into bait.”
Mara studied his face.
“You are learning.”
“Slowly.”
The maintenance office stood beside the abandoned depot, its windows boarded and its door secured with a rusted chain. Lena broke the padlock with a bolt cutter. Inside, they found a working terminal, a dusty desk, and fresh footprints on the floor. Someone had been there recently.
Mara connected her phone. While the files uploaded, she examined the desk. A torn ticket lay beneath the keyboard, stamped for a train leaving that evening. Destination: Montreal.
Julian found a second piece of paper in the waste bin. It contained a handwritten phrase. THE DAUGHTER MUST NOT KNOW THE WHOLE STORY. The handwriting was not Charles’s.
Mara knew it. She had seen it on birthday cards, old grocery lists, and the note her father had left on the kitchen table the morning before he supposedly died.
“That is Simon’s writing.”
The terminal chimed. The evidence finished uploading to Nora Bell. Then the office door slammed shut. Lena reached for her weapon, but a steel bar dropped into place from the outside.
A voice came through the boards.
“You wanted your father, Mara?”
May you like
She recognized it from childhood, from dreams that had never stopped haunting her. Simon Hart said,
“Now you will learn why he let you believe he was dead.”
