Chapter 5 - THE NIGHT MY FATHER DIED
Roman waited until Ava was asleep.
Then he closed the door.
“I was nineteen.”
I sat against the raised hospital bed.
“Start at the beginning.”
He remained standing.
Maybe because sitting would have made the conversation too personal.
“Your father found me when I was seventeen.”
“Found you where?”
“County lockup.”
That was not the answer I expected.
“For what?”
“Car theft.”
I looked at his tattoos.
His scar.
The way police officers seemed to know his name.
“That fits the aesthetic.”
For half a second, he almost smiled.
Then it disappeared.
“My mother was dead.”
He continued.
“My father drank.”
“I was angry.”
“Thomas was consulting on a juvenile rehabilitation program.”
“He convinced the judge to give me probation instead of prison.”
“Why?”
“I asked him the same thing.”
Roman looked toward the window.
“He said somebody once gave him a second chance.”
I swallowed.
“That sounds like him.”
“You remember him?”
“Pieces.”
I remembered aftershave.
Sunday pancakes.
A red bicycle.
A deep laugh from another room.
And rain falling on a coffin I was never allowed to see inside.
Roman continued.
“By nineteen, I was working for him.”
“Doing what?”
“Driving.”
“Security.”
“Anything he needed.”
“And the accident?”
His face hardened.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
I already knew.
Still, hearing it hurt.
“Tell me.”
“Thomas discovered Evelyn Mercer had been maintaining a hidden database of genetic samples.”
“M-17.”
“One of seventeen maternal lines.”
“Why?”
“Research.”
“That doesn’t sound criminal.”
“It wasn’t at first.”
Roman paused.
“Then money entered the room.”
He explained.
Thomas Bennett and Evelyn Mercer had been young genetic researchers.
They were studying inherited resistance to a rare degenerative neurological disorder.
Most patients deteriorated rapidly.
But certain maternal lines carried a mitochondrial variation that seemed to slow the disease.
Thomas wanted to study it.
Evelyn wanted to patent everything attached to it.
Cross capital financed the program.
When trials began failing, Thomas demanded they stop.
Evelyn continued secretly.
Children were enrolled under altered consent forms.
Samples were stored.
Records were changed.
My mother’s family became Subject Line M-17.
“And me?”
Roman’s voice softened.
“You inherited the sequence.”
I looked at Ava.
“So did she.”
“Yes.”
“What makes Ava different?”
“The variation remained stable.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the therapy Cross Meridian later sold for billions may only exist because of unauthorized research performed on your family.”
I felt sick.
“So the trust?”
“Thomas knew he couldn’t beat Graham Cross financially.”
“He moved his patent rights into an independent trust.”
“The trust would remain dormant until the M-17 line continued.”
I frowned.
“Why wait for another generation?”
“To prove the sequence had hereditary stability.”
That made sense.
Cold, scientific, terrible sense.
“And why specifically a daughter?”
Roman hesitated.
“Because mitochondrial DNA passes through mothers.”
I knew enough biology to understand.
A son could inherit it.
But only a daughter could pass that maternal line forward.
Ava represented continuity.
The words on the photograph returned.
IF CLAIRE HAS A DAUGHTER.
“My father planned this before he disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me about the car.”
Roman rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“Thomas called me at 1:12 a.m.”
“He said the Mercer lab had been compromised.”
“He had evidence.”
“He wanted me to drive him to a federal investigator.”
“Did you?”
“We never made it.”
A black SUV hit them on a rural road.
Roman lost control.
The car rolled.
He woke with smoke filling the cabin.
Thomas was bleeding.
A second vehicle stopped.
Men approached.
Roman reached for Thomas.
“But your father stopped me.”
“Why?”
“He said if Evelyn believed he survived, she would come for you.”
I stared at him.
“He chose to disappear.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped him.”
“Yes.”
“While I attended his funeral.”
Roman’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
Anger rose so quickly that my vision blurred.
“You watched an eight-year-old bury an empty coffin?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the funeral?”
“Yes.”
My hand flew before I thought.
The slap cracked through the room.
Roman did not move.
Did not grab me.
Did not become angry.
A red mark appeared across his cheek.
I immediately hated myself.
But I was too furious to apologize.
“You let me think he was dead.”
“I did.”
“You let me grow up without him.”
“Yes.”
“You let me marry Nathan.”
Roman finally reacted.
“That was never supposed to happen.”
“But it did.”
“I lost track of the Mercer operation six years ago.”
“Convenient.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Where was my father?”
“Moving.”
“Hiding.”
“Collecting evidence.”
“Why didn’t he contact me when I became an adult?”
Roman’s eyes changed.
There was more.
I saw it.
“What?”
“He did.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“Letters.”
I stared at him.
“He sent letters?”
“Twelve.”
“I never received them.”
“I know.”
“Who intercepted them?”
Roman looked toward the door.
“Nathan.”
My chest tightened.
“No.”
“Not personally.”
“His family.”
I felt rage building again.
Roman reached into his jacket.
This time I didn’t step away.
He removed a battered envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Not Claire Cross.
Claire Bennett.
The handwriting broke something inside me.
I recognized it.
My father’s.
“When?”
“Your eighteenth birthday.”
I opened it.
Inside was one sheet.
Claire,
If this reaches you, I failed to come home in time.
I stopped reading.
Tears blurred the words.
Roman quietly turned toward the window.
He gave me privacy without leaving.
I forced myself to continue.
There are things I did to protect you that you may never forgive.
You should not forgive them quickly.
Protection without truth becomes another kind of prison.
I covered my mouth.
My father had understood exactly what he had done.
The final paragraph read:
If you ever meet Roman DeLuca, know this: he carries guilt that belongs to me.
Do not let him turn my choices into his sentence.
I looked up.
Roman was still facing the window.
“He knew.”
Roman said nothing.
“He knew you blamed yourself.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the man I had slapped.
“Why did you keep the letter?”
“Because the courier was killed before delivery.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
Roman turned.
“And because after that, Thomas ordered me never to approach you directly.”
“Until tonight.”
“Until Ava triggered M-17.”
Silence.
Then my hospital-room television turned on by itself.
Static filled the screen.
Roman moved instantly.
The picture changed.
Security footage appeared.
A parking garage.
Timestamped twenty minutes earlier.
Nathan stood beside Vanessa.
They were arguing.
There was no audio.
Then a third person entered the frame.
An older woman.
Silver hair.
White coat.
My breath stopped.
I knew her from the photograph.
Dr. Evelyn Mercer.
She looked directly into the parking garage camera.
And smiled.
Then she held up a handwritten sign.
May you like
Two words.
HELLO, CLAIRE.
