Chapter 12 — The Mercer File
I called St. Matthew’s Hospital.
The maternity records from the night of Hannah’s crash had been sealed.
The clerk could not explain why.
She transferred me to legal services.
Legal services refused to speak without a court order.
I called Hannah’s former doctor, Dr. Samuel Keane.
The number was disconnected.
According to public records, he had died from a heart attack.
Adrian claimed he was alive.
Maisie sat across from me.
“Was your baby born?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“I was told he died.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was in surgery.”
I had fractured two ribs at the crash site while trying to reach Hannah’s car.
The hospital sedated me.
When I woke, my wife and son were gone.
My brother handled the paperwork.
Caleb.
I drove to his house.
Maisie insisted on coming.
“No.”
“You’re going to ask him about a baby connected to my father’s company.”
“That doesn’t make this safe.”
“It makes it my business.”
She was right.
I hated that too.
Caleb opened the door wearing sweatpants and a stained T-shirt.
His bruised jaw had turned purple.
He saw Maisie.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“People keep saying that to me,” she replied. “It’s getting repetitive.”
Inside, I placed the anonymous message on the table.
Caleb read it.
His face changed.
“What happened to my son?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
I grabbed his shirt.
“Try again.”
Maisie spoke behind me.
“Rowan.”
I released him.
Not because I was calm.
Because she was watching.
Caleb sat down heavily.
“Hannah gave birth at the scene.”
My knees almost failed.
“What?”
“Paramedics performed an emergency delivery.”
“You told me he died at the hospital.”
“I was told to say that.”
“By who?”
“Dr. Keane.”
“Why?”
“He said the baby had severe oxygen loss. He said there was no chance.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Caleb’s eyes filled.
“The baby was alive when they took him.”
I stepped back.
The room tilted.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You signed the death certificate.”
“I signed what Keane gave me.”
“You never checked?”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
There it was again.
Another person using love as an excuse for a choice.
“You were protecting yourself.”
“Yes,” Caleb said.
The honesty stopped me.
“I was afraid the investigation would expose that I was driving. Keane promised to make everything disappear.”
“Including my son?”
“I didn’t know that part.”
Maisie walked to the window.
A black sedan was parked across the street.
The same vehicle had followed us from my apartment.
“We need to leave,” she said.
The sedan doors opened.
Two men stepped out.
One was the kidnapper who escaped from the station.
The other was an older man carrying a medical bag.
Caleb looked through the curtain.
“That’s Dr. Keane.”
Keane was alive.
He raised his eyes toward the house.
Then lifted a phone.
Caleb’s phone began to ring.
May you like
He answered on speaker.
Keane said, “Rowan, the child you buried is seventeen years old now.”
