Chapter 5 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Protect Us
Elias reached for his phone.
Detective Ortiz stopped him.
“Do not call him.”
“I need to know where Sophie is.”
“That is different.”
He dialed his housekeeper instead.
She answered on speaker after two rings.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Where is Sophie?”
“In the den watching a movie.”
“Who is in the house?”
“Just me and Officer Lane at the front gate.”
“Is Dale there?”
“No, sir.”
“Has he called?”
“No.”
Elias exhaled.
“Keep Sophie inside.”
“Of course.”
“Lock the interior doors.”
A pause.
“Is something wrong?”
“I’ll explain later.”
He ended the call.
Ortiz took out a notebook.
“Who is Officer Lane?”
“Private security.”
“Reports to Dale?”
“Yes.”
“Then your daughter is currently being guarded by a man who reports to our person of interest.”
Elias was already moving toward the door.
“I’m getting her.”
“Not alone.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
Ortiz stepped into his path.
“If Dale is involved in this, the worst thing you can do is make him realize we know before Sophie is secure.”
Elias looked ready to physically move her.
I stepped between them.
“She’s right.”
He looked at me.
“I am not leaving my daughter there.”
“No one is asking you to.”
“Then move.”
“Think.”
His eyes flashed.
“Do not tell me to think when my child may be in danger.”
“And do not become reckless because you’re afraid.”
That hit him.
I watched him fight himself.
Then he nodded once.
Ortiz arranged for two plainclothes officers to meet us three blocks from Elias’s home.
I was told to stay at the hospital.
I refused.
“This directly involves me.”
“It also directly involves your unborn child,” Ortiz said.
“I can wait in the police vehicle.”
“You can wait here.”
“I won’t.”
She studied me.
“You doctors are a nightmare.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Twenty-five minutes later, I sat in an unmarked sedan across from a modern glass-and-stone house in La Jolla while officers approached through the side gate.
Elias sat beside me, one hand gripping the door handle.
“You lived here with her?” I asked quietly.
“With Marina?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Where did you live?”
“Rancho Santa Fe.”
“What happened to that house?”
“I sold it after she died.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t walk down the hallway without expecting to hear her.”
The admission was so raw that I looked away.
I had spent months believing Elias was emotionally empty.
Now I was beginning to understand that emptiness had been the structure he built around grief.
That did not excuse what he did to me.
But it made him harder to hate.
A radio crackled in the front seat.
“Child located.”
Elias closed his eyes.
“Secure?” Ortiz asked.
“Secure.”
“Any sign of Dale?”
“Negative.”
“Private guard?”
“Cooperative.”
Only then did Elias breathe normally.
We entered the house five minutes later.
Sophie ran toward him wearing pink pajamas and a sling.
“Daddy!”
He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her carefully.
I turned away because the sight struck somewhere tender.
Sophie noticed me over his shoulder.
“Dr. Adelaide!”
She pulled away from him and came toward me.
“Why are you here?”
I smiled.
“I wanted to make sure my favorite patient was behaving.”
“I am.”
Her housekeeper, Mrs. Alvarez, smiled faintly.
“She is not.”
Sophie looked offended.
“I mostly am.”
For three minutes, we pretended everything was normal.
Then Ortiz quietly asked Mrs. Alvarez to take Sophie upstairs.
Sophie resisted until Elias promised to join her soon.
When the child was gone, the officers began a room-by-room search.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Then Ortiz asked to see the security office.
Elias led us downstairs.
The room was small and windowless, with six monitors displaying exterior cameras.
A locked cabinet stood beside the desk.
Elias frowned.
“That wasn’t here before.”
“What wasn’t?”
“The cabinet.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“When was the last time you came into this room?”
“Two weeks ago.”
One officer photographed the lock before opening it with a warrant-approved tool.
Inside were folders.
Dozens of them.
Each had a name.
MARINA MERCER.
SOPHIE MERCER.
ELIAS MERCER.
ADELAIDE BROOKS.
My breath caught.
Ortiz put on gloves and removed my folder first.
The first page contained my hospital schedule.
The second contained my home address.
The third contained photographs of me leaving prenatal appointments.
One showed me buying baby clothes.
Another showed me sitting alone at a cafe with an ultrasound envelope on the table.
I stopped breathing.
Elias saw the photograph and went rigid.
“Someone knew.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“They knew you were pregnant.”
I couldn’t answer.
Ortiz continued carefully.
The next photograph showed me standing outside my obstetrician’s office six weeks earlier.
On the back was a handwritten note.
Seven months.
Male fetus.
Likely Mercer.
Elias gripped the edge of the desk.
“They knew before I did.”
The sentence sounded broken.
Ortiz opened Marina’s folder next.
Most of the material was old.
Photographs.
Schedules.
Copies of hospital incident reports.
A map of the road where she died.
Then Ortiz pulled out a sealed envelope.
On the front, Marina had written Elias’s name.
His face changed the moment he saw the handwriting.
“That’s hers.”
Ortiz did not hand it to him.
“It may be evidence.”
“It’s addressed to me.”
“It was found inside a suspected surveillance archive.”
“It is addressed to me.”
His voice cracked.
Ortiz looked at the envelope.
Then at him.
“I can open it in front of you.”
He nodded.
She slit the edge carefully.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
She unfolded it.
The first line made Elias sit down.
If you are reading this, Marcus has already convinced you that I was afraid of the wrong man.
Ortiz continued.
I am not afraid of Marcus.
I am afraid of Graham.
Elias looked up sharply.
Graham Voss.
His CFO.
The man whose signature appeared on payments Elias never authorized.
Ortiz read the final line aloud.
And if anything happens to me, do not trust the accident report, because Graham already knows where I keep the evidence.
Elias stared at the letter.
“What evidence?”
Ortiz turned the paper over.
Nothing.
After finding the folders in Elias’s security office, Ortiz ordered everyone out until the room could be processed properly.
We waited in the kitchen.
Sophie remained upstairs with Mrs. Alvarez.
Elias stood at the island, staring at a bowl of oranges.
I noticed because there were too many of them.
A dozen at least.
“Sophie likes them,” he said without looking up.
I had not asked.
“Because of Marina?”
“Yes.”
“She barely remembers her.”
“She remembers the smell.”
He picked up one orange, then put it down again.
“After Marina died, Sophie refused to sleep unless there was one on her nightstand.”
My chest tightened.
“For how long?”
“Almost a year.”
“Did you get her counseling?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go?”
He looked at me.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I thought she needed help more than I did.”
“That is not how grief works.”
“I know that now.”
I leaned against the counter.
“How many versions of ‘I know that now’ do you have?”
“Apparently an unlimited number.”
The answer almost made me smile.
Then he became serious.
“I was not good after Marina died.”
“What does that mean?”
“I worked.”
“That sounds like you.”
“I worked eighteen hours a day.”
“I slept at the office.”
“I let my sister handle Sophie more than she should have needed to.”
“I treated grief like a scheduling problem.”
“And then?”
“Eventually I got functional enough to look normal.”
“That is not the same as healthy.”
“No.”
I thought about the year we spent together.
He had always been controlled.
Courteous.
Generous.
Almost impossible to read when conversations became emotionally dangerous.
I had mistaken composure for indifference.
Maybe sometimes it was survival.
That did not make it harmless.
“When did you decide to date again?”
He looked surprised by the question.
“I didn’t.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I met you.”
I looked away.
He continued quietly.
“You were arguing with a contractor in the hospital lobby about a broken elevator.”
“I was not arguing.”
“You threatened to report him to three regulatory agencies.”
“The elevator was trapping patients between floors.”
“You were terrifying.”
“You asked me for coffee.”
“I was clearly not thinking rationally.”
This time I did smile.
The memory hurt.
Then Ortiz returned with the envelope addressed in Marina’s handwriting.
Every trace of warmth disappeared.
Then I noticed a faint indentation near the bottom.
“Hold it to the light.”
She did.
While the crime scene team worked downstairs, Sophie asked me to help brush her hair because her injured wrist made it difficult.
I sat behind her on the bed and moved slowly through the tangles.
She talked about school as if police were not searching the house.
She complained about a classmate named Ben who cheated at four square.
She told me she wanted a dog but her father said he traveled too much.
Then she asked whether babies liked dogs.
“Some do.”
“Will yours?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She smiled at my reflection in the mirror.
“We can teach him.”
The word we stayed with me long after she left the room.
There were four words pressed into the paper from something that had once been written on the sheet above it.
BLUE BOX.
Sophie later asked whether police were going to take her blue dollhouse away forever.
“No,” Ortiz said.
“We just need to borrow it.”
“Police borrow toys?”
“Sometimes.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“You have to bring it back.”
Ortiz nodded solemnly.
“I will personally make sure it comes back.”
That promise may have been the most serious one made all day.
SOPHIE’S ROOM.
Elias looked toward the ceiling.
May you like
Sophie’s bedroom was directly above us.
