Glass rained onto the greenhouse floor.
Curtis covered the back of his neck with one arm and pulled me behind a rusted metal table.
"Stay down."
Another shot struck the frame above us.
I heard police shouting outside.
Then return fire.
Not close.
Too far.
Marquez's people had deliberately kept their distance so Curtis would believe I came alone.
Whoever fired first had arrived between us and them.
Curtis reached inside his jacket.
I grabbed his wrist.
He looked at me.
"Gun?"
"Yes."
"No."
"Mrs. Collins—"
"No."
"If they get through that door—"
"You pull a gun and police see you, you're dead."
He stared.
Then slowly removed his empty hand.
"Fair."
The shooting stopped.
That silence frightened me more.
Curtis whispered, "They're moving."
"Who?"
"No idea."
"You shouted Pike."
"Because that's his pattern."
"What pattern?"
"Create confusion. Arrive as police. Control the scene."
Before I could answer, a voice boomed through the greenhouse.
"CURTIS MERCER! SHOW YOUR HANDS!"
Police voice.
Authoritative.
Curtis went rigid.
"Pike."
"How can you tell?"
"He drags the R in Mercer."
Under any other circumstances, that detail might have seemed absurd.
Now it probably saved our lives.
"Mrs. Collins!" Pike shouted. "Move away from him!"
Curtis laughed quietly.
"He knows you're here."
"Marquez knows too."
"Yeah, but Pike got here first."
I thought of the corrupt officer under detention.
"How is he even here?"
Curtis's face hardened.
"Then somebody let him out."
Or moved him.
Or Pike had escaped.
Nothing made sense.
Then another voice shouted from farther away.
"Margaret! This is Detective Marquez! Stay where you are!"
Two police voices.
Two claims of authority.
The nightmare of Michael's warning made real.
Don't trust the system because someone inside is bought.
Curtis whispered, "Marquez came from the north entrance."
"How do you know?"
"Her voice."
"Pike's south."
"Yes."
"Then stay between them."
Curtis looked at me.
"That's your plan?"
"It's better than getting up."
A laugh escaped him despite everything.
"Michael was right about you."
"What did he say?"
"That you're terrifying when people finally stop making decisions for you."
I almost smiled.
Then a shape appeared behind broken glass.
Pike.
No uniform.
Plain clothes.
Gun raised.
Curtis saw him at the same moment.
He pushed me lower.
Pike fired.
The bullet struck metal.
Curtis drew his weapon.
I grabbed his sleeve.
"Don't."
"He'll kill us."
"Marquez!"
I screamed her name.
Pike moved.
Then gunfire erupted from outside.
He disappeared behind a brick wall.
Marquez's voice came closer.
"Pike! Drop it!"
Pike shouted back.
"Curtis has Margaret!"
I realized immediately what he was doing.
Creating the official story.
Hostage situation.
Armed criminal.
Officer intervenes.
Curtis dies.
Maybe I die too.
Everything becomes explainable.
"He'll shoot me and blame you," I whispered.
Curtis nodded.
"That's what he does."
"Then give me the gun."
He stared at me.
"What?"
"If police come in and see you armed, Pike wins."
"You holding it is worse."
"Not if I put it on the ground away from us."
He considered for half a second.
Then handed it over grip-first.
I slid it beneath another table.
"Hands visible."
He obeyed.
That mattered.
Maybe for the first time in his adult life, Curtis Mercer surrendered control to someone instead of fear.
I lifted both hands.
"MARQUEZ! CURTIS IS UNARMED!"
"Margaret, stay down!"
"Pike is shooting at us!"
No answer for a second.
Then:
"Understood!"
The word changed the atmosphere.
Marquez believed me.
Or at least accepted the possibility.
Pike moved again.
This time I saw his face.
Not calm.
Not professional.
Desperate.
He shouted:
"Rebecca says you're done, Curtis!"
Curtis went pale.
Confirmation.
Pike wasn't improvising.
Rebecca had sent him.
"Come out," Pike shouted. "I can still fix this."
Curtis answered for the first time.
"You've been fixing things for twenty years!"
Pike laughed.
"You think you're different?"
"No."
"Then stop pretending."
Curtis looked at me.
That accusation hurt him because it was partly true.
He had participated.
Delivered money.
Helped abduct Michael.
Watched Leonard.
Lied.
Fear had not made him innocent.
He stood suddenly.
I grabbed for him.
"Don't."
"I need him looking at me."
"Why?"
"Because Marquez needs an angle."
I hated the logic.
Curtis rose halfway, hands visible.
"Pike!"
"On your knees!"
"I don't have the gun."
"Liar."
"You know me better than that."
"Exactly."
Curtis stepped into the open aisle.
Pike appeared behind a broken partition.
"Hands!"
Curtis spread them.
"No gun."
Pike saw it.
He hesitated.
That hesitation destroyed his story.
If Curtis were the armed hostage taker Pike claimed, he should have reacted with relief.
Instead Pike looked frustrated.
"Where's the page?"
Curtis smiled.
"That's what this is really about."
Pike's weapon remained trained on him.
"Give it to me."
"Rebecca didn't send you for Margaret."
My stomach tightened.
Pike glanced toward where I crouched.
"She's collateral."
The word hit me with strange clarity.
Collateral.
Twenty-one years of my family's suffering condensed into the language people used when they wanted to avoid saying victim.
Curtis said, "Rebecca wants the authorization page."
"Yes."
"Because it proves Robert ordered the targets."
"Give it to me."
"No."
"Then you die."
Curtis laughed.
"Been hearing that since I was nineteen."
Pike fired.
At almost the same instant, another gunshot answered.
Pike jerked backward.
Curtis collapsed.
I screamed.
Marquez rushed in from the opposite side with Reynolds and two tactical officers.
I crawled toward Curtis.
Blood spread across his jacket near the shoulder.
"Stay still."
He looked almost annoyed.
"Wasn't planning a jog."
Pike lay near the wall.
Alive.
Hit in the leg.
His gun several feet away.
Reynolds kicked it farther.
Marquez ordered everyone secured.
Then she turned to me.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
My body was shaking hard enough to betray me.
Curtis groaned.
Paramedics were called in.
As they cut open his sleeve, he grabbed my wrist.
"Page."
"What?"
"Don't let them take it."
"Who?"
He looked toward the officers.
Even now he didn't trust them.
Marquez heard.
"Where is it?"
Curtis's eyes narrowed.
I answered before him.
"Not here."
She looked at me sharply.
I had seen him show it.
But I suddenly understood why he had chosen a plastic sleeve he could fold into his jacket.
If Pike searched him, he'd expect it there.
After the first shots, Curtis had shoved me down.
At some point during that movement, he must have transferred it.
I felt inside my coat.
Nothing.
Then my fingers touched something at the back of my waistband.
The sleeve.
He had placed it on me while protecting me.
I did not reveal it in front of everyone.
"Later," I told Marquez.
Her eyes locked with mine.
Then she nodded.
Trust, cautiously given.
Pike laughed from the floor.
"You're all dead anyway."
Reynolds cuffed him.
"Save it."
"No, listen."
Pike's face had gone gray.
"Rebecca has Leonard."
Curtis stopped moving.
"What?"
Pike smiled through pain.
"She got him an hour ago."
Curtis stared.
"Where?"
"Same place she's taking James Varden."
My stomach dropped.
James.
"Where?"
Pike shook his head.
"Deal."
Marquez stepped closer.
"You are in no position."
"I have the location."
"You also have attempted murder, corruption and obstruction."
"Then I need something."
"What?"
"Witness protection."
Curtis laughed bitterly.
"For you?"
Pike looked at him.
"Same thing you wanted."
"Difference is I didn't shoot a woman."
"You helped kidnap a man."
Curtis went quiet.
Again, no easy heroes.
No clean villains except perhaps those at the center.
Marquez told Pike prosecutors would decide any deal.
He refused to give the location without assurances.
Then Curtis said, "I know where."
Everyone turned.
"Rebecca's father's property," he said.
"What property?"
"Not the house."
"Then what?"
"The old courthouse annex."
Marquez frowned.
"That's county property."
"Not the original building."
Curtis explained.
Robert Varden had once owned a private records warehouse used by law firms and political campaigns before donating it to a charitable trust.
The building had been vacant for years.
North side of Columbus.
Basement archive room.
No working public utilities.
Multiple entrances.
"Why there?"
"Because Rebecca grew up using it."
Pike's expression told us Curtis was right.
Marquez noticed.
"So that's the location."
Pike remained silent.
"James and Leonard are there?"
No answer.
Curtis said, "Probably."
"What does she want from James?"
"The federal memorandum."
"And Leonard?"
"The case."
"And Michael?"
Curtis looked toward me.
"She'll want him too."
My stomach tightened.
"But he's at the hospital."
Pike smiled.
"For now."
Marquez immediately ordered the hospital team changed again.
Only then did she ask me quietly:
"What did Curtis give you?"
I pulled the authorization sheet from my waistband.
Her face changed.
"You had that during the shooting?"
"Apparently."
Curtis looked almost amused from the stretcher.
"Safest place."
"I was being shot at."
"Nobody searched you."
The paramedic pushed him back.
Marquez photographed the sheet.
Then paused.
"There's writing on the back."
I hadn't noticed.
The reverse contained a date and one sentence.
Evelyn refused the second signature.
"What second signature?" I asked.
Curtis answered weakly.
"The liability transfer."
"Meaning?"
"Frank wanted her to sign a confession saying Daniel ordered everything."
My mother had refused.
"If she'd signed?"
"Your father would've taken the fall."
"Why didn't they force her?"
"Daniel arrived."
That was the photograph.
Mom captive.
Frank pressuring her.
Leonard there.
Dad arriving.
The morning of the fire.
"What happened then?"
Curtis closed his eyes.
"My father hit Daniel."
I remembered Dad's collapse after Michael's funeral.
Heart problems.
But perhaps some of his later health issues began with violence that day.
"Michael arrived during the fight," Curtis continued.
"Then?"
"Everything broke apart."
The fire.
Samuel.
Michael disappearing.
Frank dying.
The false body.
Twenty-one years of aftermath.
Marquez's phone rang.
Her face hardened.
"What now?" I asked.
"Hospital security."
My heart stopped.
"Michael?"
"Still there."
I exhaled.
"But someone tried to access his room using credentials from a county judge."
Rebecca.
"Did they get in?"
"No."
"Who?"
"A woman."
"Rebecca?"
"Security footage is coming."
Seconds later the image appeared.
Not Rebecca.
A younger woman.
Mid-thirties.
Blonde hair pulled back.
Professional clothes.
Tyler, who had been brought to the scene perimeter and now stood several yards away with an officer, saw the image on Marquez's tablet.
He went white.
"I know her."
Every head turned.
"Who?"
Tyler swallowed.
"She told me her name was Claire."
"Claire what?"
"I don't know."
"Where did you meet her?"
"Michael introduced us."
My skin went cold.
"When?"
"At the motel."
That meant there had been another person inside the network from the beginning.
"What did Michael say about her?"
Tyler stared at the image.
"That she was his daughter."
I looked at him.
"Michael has a daughter?"
Tyler nodded.
And just like that, another member of my family appeared out of a secret I had never been allowed to know.
Click here to continue reading: PART 16: Michael’s Secret Daughter Walked Into His Hospital Using Rebecca’s Credentials, Then Told Me Why Her Father Had Stayed Away From Me
The Morning After My Son Raised His Hand, I Realized Fear Had Quietly Become the Law Inside My Own House
Part 15 of 48
