Chapter 3 - The Father Lily Was Never Told About
Lily didn’t speak during the drive home.
Rachel kept trying.
“Sweetheart…”
Nothing.
“Lily.”
“You said Dad died.”
Rachel tightened her hands around the steering wheel.
“I know.”
“You showed me his picture.”
“Yes.”
The picture was of a young man named Eric Warren.
Brown hair.
Army uniform.
Rachel told Lily he died before she was born.
Now Lily understood something terrible.
Eric had been a story.
“What happened to him?”
“He was real.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
Rachel glanced at her daughter.
Nine years old.
Too young.
But lies had already made age irrelevant.
“Eric helped me disappear.”
“He wasn’t my dad?”
“No.”
“Jack is?”
Rachel’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Lily stared out the window.
“Does he know?”
“He didn’t.”
“Why?”
Rachel whispered:
“Because the last time Jack knew I was pregnant, someone tried to kill us.”
At home, Rachel locked every door.
Then took a metal box from beneath the kitchen sink.
Inside were passports.
Cash.
Three driver’s licenses.
Rachel Warren.
Rachel Cole.
Rachel Mercer.
Lily stared.
“Which one is you?”
Rachel sat down.
“All of them.”
“How?”
“Different times.”
“Why?”
Because Rachel had spent nearly ten years moving between identities.
Not from Jack.
From the organization Jack once belonged to.
The Saints of Mercy Motorcycle Club.
Lily knew biker gangs from television.
Rachel corrected her.
“They weren’t only a gang.”
Twenty years earlier, Saints of Mercy had been a rough motorcycle club tied to stolen vehicles and protection work.
Then Jack became president.
He tried to pull them away from criminal activity.
Some members followed.
Others didn’t.
One of the men who didn’t was David Hale.
David wanted money.
Private security.
Debt collection.
Political clients.
He transformed part of the club’s network into a private enforcement company called Meridian Response.
Jack walked away.
David did not.
Rachel had worked as Meridian’s bookkeeper.
That was how she met Jack.
They fell in love.
Then she discovered Meridian was laundering money through charity accounts and shell companies.
She copied records.
When David found out, Rachel ran.
Jack helped.
“You were pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Did Jack know?”
“For one day.”
Then a bomb destroyed the motel where Jack believed Rachel was hiding.
Two bodies were found.
A woman.
An unborn child.
Identification records said Rachel.
Jack believed both were dead.
Rachel survived because Eric Warren moved her the night before.
The bodies belonged to someone else.
Lily whispered:
“Who?”
Rachel looked away.
“I still don’t know.”
Then Lily remembered Marianne.
“Who is she?”
Rachel’s face changed.
“Jack’s sister.”
“Why is she scary?”
“Because Marianne helped fake my death.”
Lily stared.
“That saved you.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you afraid of her?”
Rachel opened the metal box farther.
At the bottom lay a photograph.
Marianne.
David.
And another man.
Taken years ago.
All three wore badges reading:
MERIDIAN RESPONSE.
Rachel whispered:
May you like
“Because Marianne didn’t just help me disappear.”
“She built the system that made people disappear.”
