Chapter 6 - Jonathan Mercer
My biological father was alive.
Pike had met him in Tacoma less than twenty-four hours earlier.
I should have felt joy.
I felt rage.
“Where?”
“He asked me not to tell you.”
I laughed.
“Then you came to my Thanksgiving dinner and announced he’s alive?”
“He changed his mind.”
“Convenient.”
Pike handed me an envelope.
My name.
Handwriting matching the old photograph.
Clara,
If Pike finally gives you this, then Marjorie's plan failed or mine did.
Neither possibility is good.
I stopped.
My father had known about Mom’s plan.
Whatever that meant.
The letter continued.
Do not trust the legal death record.
It wasn't created to steal from you.
It was created because someone had already filed documents proving Clara Mercer was alive somewhere else.
I looked up.
“What?”
There were two Clara Mercers.
Same birth date.
Same Social Security number.
Different photographs.
A second woman had been using my original identity since I was sixteen.
That was why my mother killed the identity legally.
Not merely to freeze the trust.
To stop the duplicate from claiming it.
“Who is she?”
Pike said:
“We don’t know.”
Mom interrupted:
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
Her face looked hollow.
“She’s Serena.”
My sister stared.
“What?”
Mom shook her head.
“Not you.”
Then what?
Marjorie explained something she had hidden for thirty-five years.
Serena was not her first daughter.
Before Serena, Marjorie gave birth to another girl.
Stillborn.
Or so doctors told her.
She named the baby Serena Claire.
Three years later, she had Serena.
When I was born to Jonathan’s former girlfriend—Marjorie herself, as we now knew? No. Mom clarified.
Jonathan was my biological father.
Marjorie was my biological mother.
Robert adopted me emotionally, later legally.
So Serena and I shared the same mother.
But the first infant, Serena Claire, apparently survived.
Mom discovered this years later.
Hospital records showed the baby transferred to neonatal care, then disappeared.
“What does that have to do with someone using my identity?”
Mom believed the missing first daughter eventually surfaced under the name Clara Mercer.
Pike shook his head.
“That was never proven.”
“Her DNA matched mine as a daughter.”
Serena whispered:
“I have another sister?”
Potentially.
Older by three years.
Mom had located the woman once.
Her name was Rebecca Sloan.
She confronted Marjorie at seventeen.
Claimed she had been raised by a family connected to Mercer Holdings.
Then vanished.
Months later, duplicate Clara Mercer records appeared.
“So you think Rebecca stole my identity.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To get Jonathan’s trust.”
Walter frowned.
“Jonathan knew Rebecca?”
Mom looked at him.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She called him Dad.”
Silence.
That meant one of two things.
Rebecca had been lied to.
Or Jonathan was also her biological father.
Serena whispered:
“Mom?”
May you like
Marjorie began crying.
“My first baby was Jonathan’s too.”
