Chapter 2 - The Photographs
Nobody touched Mercer.
Not yet.
That distinction mattered.
“Move,” he snapped at my guard.
The guard didn't blink.
I crouched beside Ellie.
“What pictures?”
Claire immediately knelt.
“Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”
Ellie looked confused by her mother's confusion.
“The sleepy pictures.”
Lucy spoke next.
“We found them in his bag.”
Mercer interrupted.
“They're children. They invent things.”
I slowly looked up.
Wrong sentence.
Claire stood.
“Richard?”
His expression softened instantly.
“Claire, please. They're frightened because you've poisoned them against me.”
“You have photographs of my daughters sleeping?”
“They misunderstood.”
“Then explain.”
He couldn't.
I extended my hand.
“Phone.”
Mercer laughed.
“You think I'm giving you my phone?”
“No.”
I nodded toward my guard.
“You're giving Detective Morales your phone.”
Mercer's confidence flickered.
I had already sent one message beneath the table.
Morales wasn't on my payroll.
That was precisely why I trusted her.
Chicago Police Detective Sofia Morales had spent six years trying unsuccessfully to prove half the rumors about me.
She also happened to be very good at protecting children.
Mercer saw her enter and immediately changed.
“This is harassment.”
Morales showed her badge.
“Then you'll enjoy clearing it up.”
Claire looked at me.
“You called the police?”
“You expected something else?”
She didn't answer.
Fair.
Morales separated everyone.
The girls remained together.
Mercer refused consent to search his phone.
That bought him approximately eleven minutes.
Lucy remembered the bag.
“It's in Mommy's car.”
Claire froze.
“What bag?”
“Mr. Mercer's black one. He put it in your trunk.”
Mercer's head snapped toward her.
Too fast.
Morales noticed.
So did I.
The bag contained a camera.
Three memory cards.
A key.
And a thick envelope.
No photographs.
Mercer smiled when Morales returned.
“Satisfied?”
Then Lucy pointed at the camera.
“That's the one.”
Morales's smile disappeared.
The memory cards were sealed as evidence.
Mercer demanded his attorney.
Claire stood beside her daughters, shaking.
I should have left.
This wasn't my family.
Not my problem.
That had been the philosophy keeping men like me alive.
Then Morales asked Claire:
“How long has Mr. Mercer had access to your house?”
Claire looked embarrassed.
“He hasn't.”
Mercer smiled.
Morales held up the key.
“Then what's this?”
Claire stared.
“I don't know.”
Ellie did.
“Our back door.”
Claire's breathing changed.
Mercer stopped smiling.
Then my phone rang.
My head of security, Vincent Cole.
“Boss, we have a problem.”
“What?”
“You asked me to run Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“There are almost no records before eight years ago.”
Fabricated identity.
That wasn't the problem.
Vincent continued.
“But I found one photograph.”
He sent it.
Richard Mercer stood outside a courthouse eleven years earlier.
Different name.
Different haircut.
Same face.
Beside him stood a woman.
My dead wife, Catherine.
My body went completely still.
Claire noticed.
“What?”
I enlarged the photograph.
Catherine had died seven years ago.
Yet Richard Mercer—the man photographing four sleeping girls—had known her.
May you like
And written across the back of the archived image were four words:
HAYES CUSTODY PROJECT — PHASE ONE.
