Chapter 4 - THE DOCTOR WHO KNEW EVERYTHING
Emily turned white.
“My daughter.”
She snatched her phone from her purse.
I hadn't even known Emily had a daughter.
“What?”
“My daughter is at my neighbor's. She was supposed to come home tonight.”
Detective Chen reacted instantly.
“Call the neighbor. Tell them not to return to the house.”
Emily dialed.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Her breathing quickened.
“Try your daughter.”
“She doesn't have her own phone.”
The detective contacted local officers and gave them Emily's address.
I could only lie there listening.
The powerlessness was unbearable.
Luke had spent years teaching me that resistance had consequences.
Now, even from a hospital room, he was trying to prove it.
Five minutes crawled past.
Then Detective Chen's radio crackled.
Officers had reached the street.
Emily gripped my hand.
A second message came through.
This time from an unknown number.
STAY OUT OF OLD BUSINESS.
Detective Chen photographed the message.
“Do you recognize the number?”
“No.”
Then Emily's phone rang.
She answered immediately.
“Hello?”
A small voice filled the speaker.
“Mom?”
Emily nearly collapsed.
“Sophie!”
My niece.
Eight years old.
Safe.
She had been playing in the neighbor's backyard and hadn't heard the phone.
Emily pressed her fist to her mouth.
Detective Chen asked to speak to the neighbor.
Officers would remain nearby.
But the photograph of Dr. Voss outside Emily's house had been real.
By the time police arrived, he was gone.
The next morning, Luke still hadn't returned.
Neither had Dr. Voss.
And Victoria Mercer agreed to come to the hospital.
She arrived shortly after noon.
I knew her immediately from Mom's photograph.
Time had changed her, but not enough.
She walked into the room wearing a charcoal-gray suit and carrying a black folder.
For a moment, she studied me.
Not with pity.
Not with curiosity.
Recognition.
“You look like I did,” she said.
I frowned.
“When?”
“When I finally understood him.”
Emily stiffened.
Victoria remained near the foot of the bed.
“I know you have no reason to trust me.”
“You're his wife.”
“Legally.”
“And you knew about me?”
Her silence answered.
Anger rose through me.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since before your wedding.”
Emily stepped forward.
“You let this happen?”
Victoria did not defend herself.
“I tried to warn her mother.”
“You could have warned Caroline.”
“I sent letters.”
“I never received them.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“Luke intercepted them.”
“How convenient.”
“Yes.”
Her voice was flat.
“Convenience has nothing to do with it.”
Victoria opened the folder.
Inside were copies of emails.
Bank transfers.
Property documents.
Medical invoices.
Dozens of them.
“Luke and I separated fifteen years ago,” she explained. “He refused divorce unless I gave him controlling interest in my father's company.”
“Why didn't you take him to court?”
“I tried.”
Her jaw tightened.
“He had information about my father.”
“What information?”
“Financial records that would have ruined hundreds of employees if exposed. Some documents were real. Some weren't. But proving which was which would have taken years.”
Luke had found another prison.
Different walls.
Same lock.
Victoria continued.
“I thought distance would be enough. Then he became obsessed with children.”
“Why?”
She laughed once without humor.
“His father.”
Luke rarely talked about his father.
When he did, it was with worship.
Arthur Mercer had built a modest shipping company into a regional empire before losing most of it in a series of bad investments.
He had been obsessed with lineage.
Legacy.
The Mercer name.
“He convinced Luke,” Victoria said, “that everything a man built was meaningless without a son to inherit it.”
My stomach tightened.
“So Luke chose me because—”
“Because Dr. Voss told him your family history suggested a strong likelihood of male children.”
The phrase sounded grotesquely clinical.
As if I had been livestock.
Victoria's expression softened for the first time.
“I am sorry.”
I stared through the window.
Cars moved along the road far below.
People walked.
Somewhere, someone was buying coffee.
Somewhere, someone was arguing about parking.
Ordinary life continued while mine was dismantled document by document.
“Tell me about Voss.”
Victoria sat.
“Adrian Voss and Luke have known each other since university.”
“What did he do?”
“I don't know everything.”
“Tell me what you know.”
She hesitated.
“Voss falsified medical reports.”
I closed my eyes.
“I knew it.”
“He told Luke what Luke wanted to hear. When something went wrong, he created an explanation.”
“Something?”
Victoria lowered her voice.
“Your pregnancies.”
I looked at her.
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I don't know.”
She lifted both hands.
“And I won't invent what I can't prove.”
That answer, strangely, made me trust her slightly more.
She continued.
“But Voss was paid after each pregnancy ended.”
Detective Chen, standing near the wall, looked sharply at her.
“You have records?”
Victoria nodded.
She handed over six bank statements.
Each showed transfers from an account associated with Luke to a consulting company registered to Adrian Voss.
The dates followed a pattern.
Within seventy-two hours of every pregnancy loss.
Emily whispered, “Oh my God.”
Detective Chen studied the pages.
“Why didn't you bring this sooner?”
“I didn't understand the pattern until Caroline was hospitalized.”
“How did you know she was here?”
“Luke called me.”
The room froze.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“What did he say?”
Victoria looked at me.
“He wanted money.”
Of course he did.
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
“To disappear.”
Detective Chen immediately asked, “Did you agree?”
“I told him yes.”
Everyone stared.
Then Victoria opened her handbag.
“I also recorded the conversation.”
That changed everything.
Detective Chen's entire posture sharpened.
“May I hear it?”
Victoria handed over a small digital recorder.
The detective pressed play.
Luke's voice filled the room.
Calm.
I hated that calm voice.
“Five hundred thousand,” he said. “Then Caroline becomes your problem instead of mine.”
Victoria's recorded voice answered.
“And Voss?”
A pause.
“He knows when to leave.”
“What happened to Caroline?”
“She was careless.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to remember what happened the last time you challenged me.”
The recording ended.
Emily looked sick.
Detective Chen asked for the device.
Victoria handed it over.
“We arranged a meeting,” Victoria said. “Tonight.”
“With Luke?”
“Yes.”
“You planned to go?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
Victoria's eyebrows rose.
“Detective—”
“If he is already threatening witnesses, you're not walking into a private meeting.”
Victoria looked at me.
“I didn't intend for it to be private.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
She reached into the folder again.
“There is something Luke doesn't know.”
She slid a photograph toward me.
It showed a young man standing beside an elderly woman.
He looked around twenty-five.
Tall.
Dark-haired.
Something about his face felt strangely familiar.
“Who is he?”
Victoria's answer made the room go silent.
“Luke's son.”
I stared at her.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It does.”
“You said you never had children.”
“I didn't.”
“Then whose son is he?”
Victoria inhaled.
“His name is Daniel Bennett.”
Bennett.
Her maiden name.
“He was born before Luke and I married.”
Emily frowned.
“So Luke already had the son he wanted?”
“No.”
Victoria's gaze shifted to me.
“Luke doesn't know Daniel exists.”
The sentence hung in the air.
“How could he not know?”
“Because Daniel's mother never told him.”
“Who was she?”
“My sister.”
My mind stalled.
Victoria explained.
Years before marrying Victoria, Luke had dated Victoria's older sister, Claire.
The relationship ended badly.
Claire discovered she was pregnant after Luke had already left the country for work.
She refused to contact him.
“She knew what he was becoming,” Victoria said.
“Why did you marry a man who treated your sister badly?”
“I was twenty-two and stupid.”
It was the first time she showed anything close to shame.
“Luke convinced me Claire had lied about everything. She wanted nothing to do with him, and I believed him.”
Claire raised Daniel alone.
Luke never knew.
Then, when Daniel was six, Claire d/i/ed from an illness.
Victoria became his guardian.
She hid his identity from Luke.
“So all these years...” Emily whispered.
“The son he was obsessed with having already existed.”
Victoria nodded.
The irony was so monstrous it almost felt unreal.
“What does Daniel know?”
“Everything now.”
“And where is he?”
“In a safe location.”
Detective Chen looked uneasy.
“He should stay there.”
“He will.”
Victoria closed the folder.
“Unless Luke forces our hand.”
That evening, Luke did exactly that.
At 7:16 p.m., every television in my hospital room switched automatically to a local news alert.
A reporter stood outside Dr. Voss's private clinic.
Behind her, police vehicles crowded the street.
The clinic had been abandoned.
Computers were missing.
Files had disappeared.
But investigators found one room that had been sealed behind a false wall during an old renovation.
Inside were dozens of boxes.
Patient records.
Photographs.
Financial documents.
And one handwritten ledger.
A ledger containing my name.
Six times.
Each entry beside a date.
Each date corresponding to one of my pregnancies.
Beside five entries was the same handwritten notation.
M.
Male.
I couldn't breathe.
Six pregnancies.
Five had been recorded as male.
The sixth entry had no notation.
The reporter continued.
Police were now searching for Luke Mercer and Dr. Adrian Voss.
Then my phone rang.
Luke.
Detective Chen signaled for everyone to remain silent.
She started recording.
I answered.
“Caroline.”
His voice was soft.
Almost affectionate.
“I need you to listen carefully.”
I said nothing.
“They're lying to you.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
“You've said that before.”
“Emily wants your money.”
“I don't have money.”
Luke laughed.
“Oh, Caroline.”
A pause.
“You really don't know, do you?”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Know what?”
“Ask your sister why Mom's envelope wasn't the only thing she inherited.”
Emily went still.
I turned toward her.
Luke continued.
“Ask her what your mother left you.”
I stared at Emily.
Her face had lost all color.
“What is he talking about?”
Emily's eyes filled.
“Caroline—”
Luke chuckled through the phone.
“There it is.”
My chest tightened.
“Emily?”
She took one step toward me.
“There's something I haven't told you yet.”
Luke spoke one final sentence.
May you like
“Your sister is worth eight million dollars.”
Then the line went dead.
