Chapter 6 - The Man Who Apologized
There are people you expect to betray you.
Marlene had been on that list since I was thirteen.
Caleb joined it the minute I found the first altered scholarship record.
Vanessa had lived there for years, although I was beginning to wonder whether I had mistaken weakness for cruelty.
Dr. Adrian Mercer was different.
He had stood on a stage in front of two thousand people and handed my name back to me after his institution had tried to erase it.
Now his name was on Lily’s emergency contact form.
I stared at the photocopy until the letters blurred.
“Maybe he was her doctor,” Eleanor said.
“He’s an administrator,” Ruiz replied. “Not a physician.”
“Maybe she knew him through the school.”
“She never attended Ashford.”
Jonah leaned over my shoulder.
“What date is this?”
Ruiz pointed.
“Six days before Clara found Noah outside the clinic.”
My stomach tightened.
“So Mercer knew she had the baby.”
“It appears so.”
“And he said nothing when he saw me carrying Noah at graduation.”
“Not publicly.”
I thought back to the ceremony.
Mercer’s expression when Eleanor recognized the blanket.
Surprise.
Had it been real?
Ruiz said, “I’m going to speak with him.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“He owes me an answer.”
“He may owe you several. He also may be part of an active criminal investigation.”
“I already live in the criminal investigation.”
Jonah muttered, “She has a point.”
Ruiz shot him a look.
“I did not ask for backup.”
“You have it anyway.”
Two hours later, Dr. Mercer sat across from us in his office.
His tie was gone. His sleeves were rolled up. For the first time, he looked less like the polished man who ran Ashford and more like someone who had not slept since graduation.
Ruiz placed the intake form on his desk.
Mercer stared at it.
Then he closed his eyes.
“That was fast.”
My anger rose.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than a denial.
“You knew Lily.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was my sister?”
“No.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“That is convenient.”
“It is also true.”
“Why were you her emergency contact?”
Mercer stood and walked toward the window.
“Lily contacted me four months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because of your research.”
I froze.
“My research?”
“She had been following the Voss Foundation accounts.”
Eleanor gripped the back of a chair.
“Why?”
Mercer looked at her.
“Because she believed those accounts had been used to steal money from her trust.”
Ruiz said, “And you knew the accounts were dirty.”
“I suspected.”
“My father suspected sixteen years ago,” I said. “He wrote A.M. in his journal.”
Mercer turned.
“What?”
“Look for A.M.”
His face tightened.
“That was not me.”
“Again, convenient.”
“Clara, I was twenty-seven when your parents died. I was teaching high school history in Phoenix.”
Ruiz took out his phone.
“We’ll verify that.”
“Please do.”
“Then who is A.M.?”
Mercer did not answer immediately.
I saw it.
He knew.
“Say it.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“My predecessor at Ashford was Arthur Maddox.”
Ruiz wrote down the name.
“What role?”
“Chief financial officer at the time. Later president.”
“And where is he now?”
“Retired. Florida, supposedly.”
“Supposedly?”
Mercer looked at me.
“Arthur Maddox disappeared from public life six months ago.”
The room went quiet.
I asked, “What did Lily tell you?”
Mercer returned to his desk.
“She told me she had proof Marlene had stolen from the Hayes trust and that some of the money moved through Ashford scholarship accounts. She also told me she was pregnant.”
“Did she tell you Simon Reed was the father?”
“No. She refused to name him.”
Jonah’s jaw tightened.
“That sounds like Lily.”
Mercer continued.
“I asked her to come in. She wouldn’t. She believed someone inside Ashford was watching her.”
“Was she right?”
“Yes.”
The answer stunned me.
Mercer unlocked a desk drawer and removed a second red folder.
“After Clara submitted her research project, I ordered a quiet internal audit.”
I stared at him.
“You knew before my complaint?”
“I knew there were irregularities. I did not know who was responsible.”
“Then why was my scholarship suspended?”
“Because someone bypassed my office and went directly through student conduct.”
“You run the school.”
“And someone inside it knew exactly how to make the suspension automatic.”
Ruiz asked, “Who?”
Mercer opened the folder.
“Caleb Rourke had access. So did Registrar Helen Baird and Associate Dean Philip Shaw.”
Shaw.
I remembered the name from donor dinners.
A cheerful man with perfect teeth who always remembered everyone’s major.
“Which one protected Caleb?”
Mercer looked at me.
“All three were connected.”
Jonah folded his arms.
“What happened when Lily went into labor?”
Mercer’s expression changed.
“She called me from a motel.”
“When?”
“About twenty-four hours before she reached the clinic. She was terrified. She said someone had found her.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t say.”
“You didn’t call police?”
“I did. She disappeared before they arrived.”
“Then how did you end up on her emergency form?”
“I told St. Catherine’s to call me if she came in.”
“And did they?”
Mercer looked down.
“Yes.”
The room seemed to stop.
“You were there,” I said.
“After the delivery.”
“You saw Noah.”
“Yes.”
I stood so quickly my chair tipped.
“You saw him, and then six days later he was abandoned outside the clinic.”
“Clara—”
“You knew.”
“I knew there was a baby. I did not know Lily had died until the morning you found him.”
“Then who left him outside?”
“I don’t know.”
My voice rose.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to investigate it.”
Ruiz said, “Why didn’t you come forward?”
Mercer’s eyes met mine.
“Because Lily made me promise.”
“What promise?”
“That if anything happened to her, I would not identify Noah until I knew who was safe.”
Eleanor’s voice cracked.
“I was safe.”
Mercer looked at her with something close to pity.
“Lily did not believe that.”
Eleanor recoiled.
“Why?”
“She believed someone in your family gave Marlene information.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Maybe.”
I moved closer to Mercer’s desk.
“What information?”
“The location of Lily’s apartment. Simon’s name. Her pregnancy.”
Jonah swore under his breath.
Mercer continued.
“Lily told me she trusted only two people with the full story. Simon and a lawyer.”
“Samuel Pike?” I asked.
Mercer nodded.
My mother’s letter had named the same attorney.
“Where is Pike?”
“No idea.”
Ruiz said, “We’ll find him.”
Mercer hesitated.
“That may be difficult.”
“Why?”
“He was reported dead thirteen years ago.”
I stared.
“Of course he was.”
Mercer opened the red folder and slid a photograph toward me.
It showed Lily in a parking lot, visibly pregnant, talking to an older man beside a dark sedan.
The photograph had been taken from a distance.
“Who is that?”
“We thought it was Pike.”
Ruiz looked closer.
“You said he died thirteen years ago.”
“I said he was reported dead.”
I picked up the photo.
The man’s face was partially turned away, but there was something familiar about him.
The posture.
The square shoulders.
The watch.
I had seen that watch in an old family photograph.
My mouth went dry.
“No.”
Jonah leaned closer.
“What?”
I handed him the picture.
“My father owned that watch.”
Eleanor stood.
“Thomas died sixteen years ago.”
Ruiz looked at Mercer.
Mercer looked back at me.
“I know.”
I stared at the grainy image of my pregnant sister standing beside a man who looked like my dead father.
Then my phone rang.
Marlene.
I answered without speaking.
May you like
Her voice was calm.
“Now do you understand why I ran?”
