Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER INSIDE MY HOUSE
Marcus Shaw had worked for me for three years.
He had access to my house.
My office.
My security codes.
My travel schedule.
And my son.
Now he was standing in my library telling me the man who had followed Emily minutes before her death was his older brother.
I ordered him to surrender his weapon.
He did it without argument.
Detective Sloan took it.
“You want to explain?” I asked.
Marcus looked at me.
“My legal name is Marcus Mercer.”
Claire stepped closer to Eli.
I noticed.
So did Marcus.
“I would never hurt him.”
“You lied your way into my home.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To find Gavin.”
The anger inside me had become too large to feel like anger anymore.
It felt like ice.
“You had three years to tell me.”
“I didn’t know if you were involved.”
That stopped me.
“Involved in what?”
“His disappearance.”
Marcus looked at Sloan.
“My brother worked security for Cole Development for six years.”
“He trusted Nathan.”
“He did jobs that weren’t in his official job description.”
“What kind of jobs?”
“Following people.”
“Moving documents.”
“Getting access to buildings.”
Marcus swallowed.
“Intimidating employees.”
Claire’s face tightened.
“Sarah?”
Marcus looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“I never met Sarah.”
“Your brother had her car.”
“I know that now.”
Claire took a step toward him.
“Did he make her disappear?”
“I said I don’t know.”
I moved between them.
“Keep talking.”
Marcus nodded.
“Three days after Emily died, Gavin called me.”
“I was living in Phoenix.”
“He sounded terrified.”
“He said he had done something he couldn’t undo.”
“What?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“He told me if anyone from Cole Development contacted me, I should deny knowing where he was.”
“Then?”
“He disappeared.”
“You went to police?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“They said he was an adult and free to leave.”
“Why come to work for me?”
“Because six months later, I received an envelope.”
Marcus pulled an old photograph from his wallet.
Gavin stood beside Emily’s wrecked Mercedes.
Alive.
Looking directly at the camera.
On the back were five words.
ASK WHAT NATHAN MADE HIM DO.
I stared at it.
“Who sent this?”
“I never found out.”
“And you decided to infiltrate my house.”
“Yes.”
“You could have gotten Eli killed.”
Marcus flinched.
“I know.”
“No.”
My voice rose.
“You don’t get to say that.”
“You watched Vanessa enter this family.”
“You watched Nathan walk through these doors.”
“You knew your brother might have been involved in Emily’s death, and you said nothing.”
“I had no proof.”
“You had more than I did.”
Marcus lowered his head.
That afternoon, I fired him.
Detective Sloan did not arrest him.
Yet.
But she took his passport.
His phone.
His laptop.
And three years of security logs.
Then the second attack began.
Not against my body.
Against my reputation.
At 7:40 the following morning, the first story appeared online.
BILLIONAIRE DEVELOPER ADRIAN COLE SUBJECT OF SECRET CUSTODY PETITION.
By eight, three business sites had repeated it.
By nine, television vans were outside the gates.
The leaked documents included excerpts from my therapy records.
Panic attacks.
Insomnia.
Medication.
One note from Dr. Larkin stating I had experienced “episodes of emotional dysregulation” after Emily’s death.
They left out the next sentence.
Patient presents no danger to himself or others and remains a highly attentive father.
By noon, the internet had already decided who I was.
A grieving billionaire.
An unstable father.
A violent executive.
A man who had supposedly terrorized his fiancée.
Vanessa’s attorney issued a statement.
She claimed she had been “forcibly removed from her home after attempting to protect a child from a reckless nanny.”
There was no mention of the bruises on Eli’s wrist.
No mention of Claire’s cheek.
No mention of Emily’s video.
The security footage had not been released because Sloan wanted it preserved as evidence.
Nathan called me at 12:17.
I answered.
“You need to stop this.”
His voice sounded calm.
Almost sympathetic.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You leaked my medical records.”
“Prove it.”
“You filed the petition.”
“Prove that too.”
“Come say it to my face.”
“No.”
A pause.
Then Nathan spoke quietly.
“You’re doing exactly what they say you do.”
“Who is they?”
“The people worried about Eli.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“If you come near my son—”
“There.”
Nathan sighed.
“That tone.”
“That anger.”
“Every phone call can become evidence, Adrian.”
I went silent.
He laughed softly.
“That’s better.”
Then he hung up.
Michael looked at me from across the study.
“He’s baiting you.”
“I know.”
“He wants recordings.”
“I know.”
“Then stop giving him anything.”
I threw my phone onto the sofa.
“I know.”
But knowing and controlling were different things.
That evening, we learned the emergency family court hearing had been moved forward.
Forty-eight hours.
Someone had filed an amended petition.
It claimed that Vanessa’s removal from the estate demonstrated my “escalating instability.”
It also claimed that Claire Bennett was manipulating Eli.
The petition requested temporary placement with a blood relative.
Nathan.
I nearly laughed when Michael told me.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes evil was so shameless that disbelief came out sounding like laughter.
“They actually asked the court to give Eli to him?”
“Yes.”
“After Emily’s recording?”
“The court hasn’t seen the recording yet.”
“They will.”
“Yes.”
Michael hesitated.
“But there’s a problem.”
“What?”
“The video helps us.”
“But Emily’s statements are still hearsay unless we independently establish the facts.”
My stomach tightened.
“So we establish them.”
“That’s what we’re doing.”
Claire entered the study.
She carried Eli’s blue blanket.
The one where she had found the silver key.
“I noticed something.”
She laid it on the desk.
The blanket had tiny embroidered stars around the edge.
One corner looked slightly thicker.
“I thought this was where the key had been hidden.”
She pointed.
“But it isn’t.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“The stitching was opened here.”
“Someone put the key back.”
“Yes.”
She turned the blanket over.
“But the original seam Emily made is on the opposite side.”
Claire carefully pressed her fingers along the hem.
Something inside crackled.
Michael leaned forward.
Claire used a small seam ripper.
Three stitches opened.
A strip of paper slid onto the desk.
Not paper.
A photograph.
Emily stood beside a woman outside a coffee shop.
The date stamp was nine days before her death.
Claire gasped.
“That’s Sarah.”
On the back, Emily had written four words.
SHE KNOWS ABOUT HARBOR PINES.
Michael stared at the message.
“What is Harbor Pines?”
Claire’s face had gone pale.
“I don’t know.”
Detective Sloan did.
She called us twenty minutes later.
Harbor Pines was a private behavioral health facility eighty miles north of the city.
It specialized in long-term psychiatric treatment.
According to public records, the facility had once been partly owned by an investment company.
Northstar Family Services.
I looked at Claire.
She was already reaching for her phone.
“My sister didn’t disappear.”
Her voice shook.
“Oh my God.”
“She didn’t disappear.”
May you like
Someone had made her disappear.
And if Emily had known where Sarah was before she died, then Sarah might be the only living person who knew exactly what Nathan had been trying to hide.
