Chapter 5 - The Woman Without a Face
The drawing was taped beneath Emily’s dresser.
Not a child’s drawing.
Mine.
Charcoal.
A woman standing beside a tunnel entrance.
Her face deliberately erased.
Around her neck was a distinctive necklace.
A silver circle split through the middle.
Daniel recognized it.
His mother owned one exactly like it.
He nearly dropped the page.
“No.”
Laura said nothing.
Daniel’s mother, Margaret Mercer, was seventy-two.
Still alive.
Living less than twenty miles away.
Daniel had breakfast with her every Sunday.
She had spent thirty years grieving Nathan.
Or pretending to.
“Sarah thought my mother was involved?”
“She didn’t know.”
“Then why investigate me?”
“Because three months ago, Sarah saw Nathan.”
Daniel stared.
“Where?”
“In this building.”
Impossible.
Nathan would be forty-three now.
Sarah had been returning from work when she saw a man standing beside the elevator.
He recognized her.
Called her “Rabbit.”
Only one person outside our family had called Sarah that.
Nathan.
Because of the stuffed rabbit she carried the night he disappeared.
She followed him.
He vanished through the stairwell.
Security footage from that evening had been erased.
Days later, the apartment power began shutting off randomly.
Objects moved.
Someone entered without stealing anything.
Then Sarah received notes.
STOP LOOKING.
Emily’s face changed.
“I saw one.”
Daniel crouched.
“What did it say?”
She swallowed.
“ASK DANIEL WHAT HE REMEMBERS.”
Daniel felt the room spin.
His childhood before Nathan disappeared existed in fragments.
Doctors had called it trauma.
His father discouraged therapy.
His mother said remembering would only hurt him.
For thirty years, he accepted that.
Then Leo spoke.
“Mommy said Daniel was there.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Where?”
“The little room.”
Laura stared.
“What little room?”
Leo shrugged.
“The one with two Daniels.”
Nobody spoke.
Daniel asked:
“Two Daniels?”
Leo nodded.
“One good. One bad.”
Laura went white.
She reached for the counter.
“Sarah remembered.”
“Remembered what?”
Laura whispered:
“The Mercer program.”
Daniel stared.
“What program?”
“My father found files after Nathan disappeared. He burned most of them because he was terrified.”
“Files about what?”
“Children.”
Daniel’s voice hardened.
“What children?”
Laura looked directly at him.
“You and Nathan.”
Then heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Exactly like Emily had described during the 911 call.
One step.
Another.
Then they stopped outside Apartment 4C.
Emily whispered:
“That’s him.”
Daniel turned toward the door.
But Emily shook her head.
“No.”
May you like
She pointed toward the mirror hanging beside it.
“He never comes through the door.”
