Chapter 5 - The Secret Frank Left for My Daughter
Frank’s recording led us back to my childhood home.
By then, dawn had started turning the sky pale.
I wanted to sleep.
I wanted to wake up and discover the previous six hours had been some grief-induced nightmare.
Instead, Daniel drove while I sat beside him holding Frank’s letter.
Rebecca followed in her own car.
The house looked exactly as it always had.
Brown brick.
White shutters.
Maple tree beside the driveway.
Frank had bought it when I was five.
Or at least, that was what I had been told.
Now every ordinary object seemed suspicious.
I unlocked the front door.
The smell hit me immediately.
Frank.
Coffee.
Old books.
Wood polish.
Home.
Grief nearly folded me in half.
His jacket still hung beside the door.
His reading glasses rested on the table.
A grocery list was stuck to the refrigerator.
MILK.
EGGS.
CINNAMON.
APPLES.
I touched the final word.
Apple pancakes.
Daniel stood quietly behind me.
“We can do this later.”
“No.”
Frank had spent his final breath sending me toward the truth.
I would finish what he started.
The audio instructed us to go to the basement.
Behind Frank’s workbench.
“Third panel from the left,” his recorded voice had said.
I had played in that basement as a child.
Built forts.
Wrapped Christmas presents.
Helped Frank paint old furniture.
Never once had I suspected the wall contained anything.
Daniel found the panel.
It looked normal until he pushed one corner.
Click.
A narrow compartment opened.
Rebecca whispered, “Frank, what did you do?”
Inside was a small fireproof safe.
The combination was my birthday.
Of course it was.
Inside we found documents, cash, another drive, and a cassette tape.
A cassette tape.
Daniel frowned.
“Do we even have something that plays this?”
I knew immediately where to look.
Frank never threw technology away.
Ten minutes later, I found his ancient cassette player in a storage cabinet.
The tape hissed when we pressed play.
Then a man began speaking.
“My name is Samuel Price.”
Rebecca made a sound.
“You know him?”
She nodded slowly.
“He worked for Walter.”
The recording continued.
Samuel said he had been Walter Mercer’s driver and occasional “problem solver” for nearly eleven years.
He described following Frank.
Watching our family.
Reporting addresses.
Then his voice changed.
“Walter told me to frighten Rachel.”
My fingernails dug into my palm.
“He wanted her scared enough to convince Frank to come home.”
The tape hissed.
“I was supposed to disable her car so she’d discover it before driving.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“I cut the brake line.”
I stopped breathing.
“But she drove before I could warn her.”
Silence.
Then Samuel began crying.
“I killed her.”
My knees weakened.
Daniel grabbed my arm.
The recording had been made twelve years after Mom’s death.
Samuel explained he had found Frank and confessed.
Walter had ordered intimidation, he claimed, not murder.
Samuel had altered the brakes beyond what was intended.
Whether that absolved Walter was debatable.
He had created the threat.
Samuel had carried it out.
My mother paid the price.
“Why didn’t Frank take this to the police?” I shouted at the machine.
Rebecca answered quietly.
“Maybe he did.”
The tape continued.
Frank’s voice appeared.
“You’re willing to testify?”
“Yes.”
“Against Walter?”
“Yes.”
“What about Voss?”
Samuel went silent.
Frank repeated the name.
“Charles Voss.”
Samuel whispered, “He knew.”
My skin prickled.
“Knew what?” Frank asked.
“All of it.”
The tape clicked.
End.
“That’s it?” I said.
Daniel turned the cassette over.
Nothing.
I searched the safe.
There was a police report from the following year.
Samuel Price had died in a single-car accident six weeks after the recording.
No criminal charges had ever been filed.
The confession had become useless hearsay.
Walter denied involvement.
Voss denied everything.
Frank apparently abandoned the fight.
My anger finally found somewhere to land.
Walter.
Voss.
Samuel.
Frank.
Even Rebecca.
Every adult who had made decisions around me while I grew up inside an artificial reality.
“I need to leave.”
Daniel followed me upstairs.
“Where are you going?”
“Hospital.”
“Frank’s body has already—”
“I know.”
I turned.
“I know he’s dead.”
The words came out viciously.
Daniel said nothing.
I regretted it immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yes, I do.”
He pulled me against him.
For several seconds, I let him hold me.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Something made me answer.
“Hello?”
A man spoke.
“Is this Emma?”
Every hair on my arms rose.
No one called me Emma.
No one except Rebecca knew I had discovered the name.
“Who is this?”
“Ms. Mercer, my name is Andrew Voss.”
I looked at Daniel.
Voss.
“Charles Voss was my father.”
I put the call on speaker.
“What do you want?”
“I believe Frank attempted to contact me several months ago.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To discuss the family trust.”
My voice hardened.
“My father is dead.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry.”
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Who I was.”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
I felt rage ignite.
“How long?”
“Several years.”
“Why contact Frank?”
“Because my father died last year.”
That surprised me.
“And before he died,” Andrew continued, “he left me documents concerning your family.”
“What documents?”
“Records.”
“Of what?”
“My father’s work for Walter Mercer.”
Daniel mouthed, Be careful.
Andrew continued.
“I believe you deserve them.”
“Why?”
“Because my father spent decades protecting the wrong man.”
“Are you asking for money?”
“No.”
“The trust?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
A long silence.
“Because I have a daughter.”
His voice changed.
“And when I discovered what my father had helped do to yours, I realized I couldn’t become him.”
I didn’t trust him.
But I understood the sentence.
We agreed to meet in a public place that afternoon.
Rebecca hated the idea.
Daniel hated it more.
I went anyway.
Andrew Voss was nothing like the sinister man I had imagined.
He was around fifty.
Tired-looking.
Nervous.
He arrived carrying an attorney’s document box.
Daniel sat beside me.
Rebecca sat across the café.
Andrew put the box down.
“My father kept everything.”
Inside were decades of records.
Payments.
Letters.
Surveillance notes.
Photographs.
And one document that changed the story again.
Walter Mercer had not spent thirty-five years trying to find me.
He had stopped searching when I was six.
I stared at Andrew.
“Why?”
“Because Frank confronted him.”
“When?”
“About a year after your mother died.”
“What happened?”
Andrew removed a handwritten letter.
Walter’s signature appeared at the bottom.
Frank had offered him a deal.
Leave my daughter alone forever, and I disappear forever.
Walter agreed.
Not because he became compassionate.
Because Frank threatened to expose business records proving decades of fraud.
Frank had stolen copies before running away.
Mutual destruction.
A truce.
“So I was safe?”
“After that, mostly.”
“Frank knew?”
“Yes.”
My heart broke all over again.
Frank could have told me decades ago.
He had kept lying anyway.
Andrew seemed to read my face.
“There’s one thing you should understand.”
“What?”
“Frank didn’t maintain the secret because he was still afraid of Walter.”
“Then why?”
Andrew pushed another letter toward me.
This one was written by my mother.
Rachel.
To Frank.
If anything happens to me, promise me Birdie never grows up believing she belongs to the Mercers.
Let her be yours in every way that matters.
Give her a normal life.
No money.
No legacy.
No Walter.
Let his name die with him.
I stared at the page until the letters blurred.
Rebecca whispered, “Rachel.”
Frank hadn’t been begged by some lawyer.
Or threatened by a criminal.
My mother had begged him to take the truth to his grave.
And for thirty-five years, he had tried to honor her final wish.
Until cancer forced him to decide whether protecting her promise meant betraying me.
I pressed the letter against my chest.
For the first time since Frank confessed, my anger softened.
Not disappeared.
But softened.
Then Andrew said, “There is another reason your father contacted me.”
I looked up.
“The trust.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want the money.”
“It isn’t about the money.”
He slid one final folder across the table.
On the tab was written:
LUCY.
My daughter’s name.
I opened it.
May you like
And everything inside me turned to ice.
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