Chapter 13 - SIXTY-TWO HOURS
Sixty-two hours remained before the wedding.
Arthur and Vanessa were missing.
Mercer had Noah.
Adeline remained in custody, but she refused to speak.
Federal agencies searched airports, ports, private homes, clinics, and every property connected to the Hale and Mercer families.
Arthur and Vanessa had not left Savannah.
Their hotel appearance was intentional.
They wanted us to know they were close.
The hotel camera showed Arthur entering Room 714.
Agents raided it.
The room was empty.
A wedding suit hung inside the closet.
A cream bridal dress rested across the bed.
A television displayed a countdown.
SIXTY-ONE HOURS.
On the desk sat three sealed boxes labeled LUCY, RACHEL, and APRIL.
Bomb technicians opened them.
Lucy’s box contained a torn page from Rose’s diary.
Rachel’s contained a damaged recorder.
April’s contained a vial of blood.
Laboratory testing later confirmed the blood belonged to Noah.
The message was clear.
Mercer possessed Rose’s missing records, understood each girl’s role, and could reach Noah whenever he wanted.
Inside the damaged recorder, technicians recovered part of a conversation never heard before.
Rose’s voice said, “Elias, these children are not experiments.”
Mercer answered, “Every child is an experiment nature performs.”
“You changed the embryos.”
“I improved the odds.”
“You violated us.”
“I gave you April.”
“You gave yourself access to my body without consent.”
Mercer’s calmness made the recording unbearable.
Rose continued.
“I am going to the police.”
“Which police?”
“I have copies.”
“So do I.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father’s name appears on every foundation document.”
“You forged those documents.”
“Can you prove it before Arthur proves you are unstable?”
The recording explained why Rose built layers of evidence.
Mercer threatened to frame our entire family.
He believed fear would silence her.
He never understood Rose.
Mara traced the diary page in Lucy’s box.
The page number came from the section Arthur wanted most.
It listed people who had accepted money but later tried to leave the network.
One name was underlined.
MEREDITH HALE.
Arthur’s younger sister had attended Rose’s funeral.
She stood near the back and left before Arthur’s announcement.
Lucy remembered Arthur mentioning Aunt Meredith during private threats.
Rachel was supposed to live with her if the sisters were separated.
We visited Meredith’s apartment.
The door was open.
Inside, furniture had been overturned.
Blood marked the kitchen floor.
Meredith was gone.
A camera near the building showed her being placed into a medical transport vehicle two hours earlier.
The vehicle belonged to the same supply company used by Mercer.
He was collecting witnesses.
Tessa found Meredith’s name in the second account.
She had received money from Arthur for five years.
Then the payments stopped three months before Rose died.
Meredith had begun helping Rose.
A hidden email account contained messages between them.
Meredith provided the original marriage license proving Arthur and Vanessa married before Rose.
She also photographed Arthur’s watch after seeing him leave the garage.
Rose trusted her enough to place Rachel in her care if something happened to me.
Arthur discovered the communication.
That was why he threatened to separate Rachel from her sisters.
He wanted Meredith and Rachel under the same roof where he could control both.
Meredith’s final email contained a phrase.
THE ROSES BLOOM UNDER GLASS.
Mara recognized it as a reference to the Savannah Botanical Conservatory.
Arthur’s father once funded a private greenhouse there.
Federal agents searched it.
Beneath a glass floor, they found a basement clinic.
Meredith lay unconscious inside.
She was alive.
Noah had been there earlier.
Medical waste contained his blood.
Mercer was moving him between temporary treatment sites.
Meredith regained consciousness at the hospital.
She asked for Lucy.
We allowed the girls to speak with her through a secured video call.
Meredith cried when she saw them.
“I am sorry I left the funeral.”
“Why did you leave?” Lucy asked.
“Arthur texted me.”
“What did he say?”
“He knew I helped your mother.”
“He told me to leave before he made the announcement or he would take Rachel immediately.”
Rachel leaned closer to the screen.
“Why me?”
“Because you saw the garage.”
Rachel looked confused.
“I didn’t see anything.”
Meredith shook her head.
“You drew a picture.”
Rachel remembered.
She often sketched the house at night.
The morning Rose died, she drew the garage window, the oak tree, and a person near the car.
She believed the figure was Arthur.
However, the person in her drawing wore a long coat and had shoulder-length hair.
The luxury watch belonged to Arthur, but the person wearing it may not have been him.
Arthur admitted entering the garage to change a tire.
Someone else later used his watch or borrowed it.
Meredith told us Arthur gave the watch to Vanessa after the glass cracked.
Vanessa wore it the night before Rose died.
The garage footage did not show Arthur.
It showed Vanessa.
Arthur drugged Rose’s tea.
Vanessa cut the brake line.
Adeline ordered the murder.
Mercer created the entire system that made it possible.
Every person carried one part of the crime.
No single confession could free the others.
Meredith then revealed the most urgent truth.
“The wedding is not at St. Agnes.”
“What?”
“Arthur knows about Rose’s recording system.”
“Where will they marry?”
“The invitation says St. Agnes.”
“It is a diversion.”
“Arthur’s father built a replica chapel beneath the old river hotel.”
The Hale Grand Hotel had been abandoned for fifteen years.
Its underground ballroom included a private chapel used for secret business ceremonies.
The transfer contract required a church witness, but not a public church.
Mercer planned to stage the ceremony underground while police watched St. Agnes.
“Why keep the St. Agnes countdown?” I asked.
“Because the church system still matters,” Meredith said.
“Rose arranged for the recordings to transmit to every phone connected to the wedding network.”
“The underground chapel uses the same server.”
“If the vows begin, her evidence will still play.”
Mercer could not simply move locations.
He needed to destroy St. Agnes’s transmission system before the ceremony.
That gave us two targets.
The public church.
The underground chapel.
The countdown reached forty-eight hours.
Federal agents divided their teams.
Bell would secure St. Agnes.
Sam would guide agents through the Hale hotel’s old service tunnels.
Mara would remain with the girls.
I intended to go underground.
“You are not trained for this,” Bell said.
“Arthur will expect me.”
“That is why you should stay away.”
“Noah has never seen me.”
“Mercer has.”
“He wants April.”
“He will use you to reach her.”
“That is why I am useful.”
April overheard us again.
She handed me her blue porcelain angel.
“Mom said this protects promises.”
I placed it inside my coat.
“You stay with your sisters.”
“I know.”
“Do not leave Mara.”
“I know.”
“Whatever message you receive, do not believe it unless Mara confirms.”
April nodded.
Then she hugged me.
“Bring Noah back.”
The night before the operation, a package arrived at the federal safe house.
It contained a tablet.
The screen showed Noah lying inside a hospital room.
He was thin, pale, and frightened.
Vanessa sat beside him.
Arthur stood near the door.
Mercer’s voice spoke from behind the camera.
“Charles, tomorrow you will bring April’s medical records to the Hale Grand Hotel.”
“You will enter through the river tunnel.”
“If police follow you, Noah will not receive the medication keeping him alive.”
The camera moved toward Arthur.
“Tell him.”
Arthur looked directly into the lens.
“Do what he says.”
“Is April safe?” I asked the screen even though it was a recording.
Arthur continued.
“Mercer has the original donor files.”
“He can expose everything.”
“He wants Rose’s confession and the memory chip.”
“He already knows what they contain.”
“He wants the originals destroyed.”
The screen switched to a live feed.
Mercer appeared.
“You have forty-seven hours.”
“Bring the evidence.”
“Bring the child.”
“Or choose which grandchild you want to bury next.”
The call ended.
Federal technicians traced the signal.
It came from inside the courthouse.
Someone had transmitted the threat using Judge Whitmore’s private chamber.
Agents entered within minutes.
The chamber was empty.
On the judge’s desk sat a photograph taken through the window of Mara’s safe house.
Lucy, Rachel, and April were visible inside.
Mercer knew exactly where the girls were being protected.
May you like
And someone inside the federal operation was sending him their location.
TO BE CONTINUED.
