Chapter 5 - The Voice Thomas Left Behind
The cassette player looked absurdly old on Dominic Vale's polished library desk.
Luca had found it in a closet because nobody in the house could remember the last time anyone had needed one.
Hannah sat with her arms wrapped around herself while Dominic inserted the tape marked in her father's handwriting.
HANNAH - WHEN ELENA FINDS YOU.
The label alone made her chest ache.
Dominic pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Thomas Mercer's voice came through the small speaker.
Hannah gripped the edge of the chair.
She had not heard her father's voice since deleting an old voicemail by accident eight months after his funeral.
The sound of him now was weaker than she remembered, roughened by illness but unmistakably his.
"Hannah, if you're hearing this, then one of two things has happened."
The tape hissed.
"Either I finally found the courage to tell you the truth, or your sister found you after I was gone."
Hannah shut her eyes.
Dominic did not move.
"Her name was Helena Rose Mercer when she was born."
Thomas coughed for several seconds.
"Your mother chose Rose because it was her grandmother's name, and I chose Helena because Catherine said you two needed names that sounded like they belonged together."
Hannah's throat tightened.
"We had no intention of giving either of you away."
She opened her eyes.
Dominic was watching the tape player, not her.
"The night after you were born, a man came to my hospital room."
The tape clicked faintly.
"He knew things about my work that he should not have known."
"At the time, I kept books for three freight companies at the Brooklyn waterfront."
"One of those companies belonged quietly to Victor Vale."
Dominic's jaw hardened.
"I had found transfers that did not make sense, and I had copied them because I was afraid someone would blame me later."
"I was stupid enough to tell my supervisor."
"By morning, a man named Matteo Vale knew."
Luca looked at Dominic.
Dominic's expression became unreadable.
Thomas continued.
"Matteo said the copies belonged to his family, and I said they belonged to whoever was brave enough to take them to the police."
"He smiled at me."
"Then he told me newborn babies were fragile things."
Hannah covered her mouth.
"By the time I reached the nursery, Helena was gone."
The room disappeared around her.
She heard only her father's voice.
"They told Catherine one of the babies had developed breathing trouble."
"They sedated her when she became hysterical."
"Matteo took me downstairs and showed me a photograph of Helena in another man's arms."
"He said I would get her back if I returned every copy and never spoke about the accounts again."
"I did what he asked."
Thomas's voice cracked.
"He did not give her back."
Hannah's eyes filled.
She hated herself for all the years she had silently judged her father for being timid, cautious, and terrified of conflict.
She had never known what had taught him fear.
"Two days later, an adoption document appeared."
"My signature was on it because Matteo put a gun against my ribs and told me Hannah would disappear too if I refused."
Hannah bent forward, pressing both hands against her face.
Dominic reached toward her and stopped before touching her.
The tape continued.
"The hundred thousand dollars was deposited into my account to make it look like I sold my daughter."
"I withdrew every dollar and left it at the freight office."
"I wrote down everything I could remember."
"For years, I searched for Helena."
"I found the Rossis when you were sixteen."
Hannah's head lifted sharply.
"Anthony and Maria Rossi were good people."
"They did not know she had been stolen."
"They believed the adoption was legal."
"Helena was happy, and I convinced myself that telling the truth would destroy both of you."
Anger returned through Hannah's grief.
"You were sixteen, and she was sixteen, and I was a coward."
Thomas seemed to know exactly what his daughter would think.
"I watched her from a distance twice."
"She looked like you."
"God forgive me, she looked so much like you that I drove home and cried in the car because I knew what I had allowed fear to steal from us."
Hannah wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
"When Anthony Rossi died, I tried to contact Helena."
"Before I could, someone warned me that Matteo was still watching."
"Then Helena married Dominic Vale."
Dominic's eyes closed for one moment.
"I thought it was impossible."
"I thought perhaps Matteo had arranged it."
"I investigated Dominic as much as a sick old accountant could investigate a man like him."
A faint humorless laugh came through the speaker.
"I never found proof Dominic knew what had happened to Helena as a baby."
Dominic exhaled slowly.
"I believe he did not."
Hannah looked at him.
"But I do not trust Matteo."
Thomas coughed again.
"Hannah, if Helena reaches you, listen to her before you listen to any Vale."
Dominic's face tightened, but he said nothing.
"And if Dominic Vale is standing beside you when you hear this, then hear me too, Mr. Vale."
Dominic straightened.
Hannah almost forgot to breathe.
"Your uncle has spent his life making other men carry the consequences of his decisions."
"If Elena is dead, do not assume the grave contains the whole truth."
The tape fell silent for three seconds.
Then Thomas spoke one final time.
"There is a blue ledger hidden where Catherine and I first met."
"It contains the names I was too frightened to say aloud."
"Find it before Matteo does."
The tape clicked off.
No one moved.
Hannah stared at the machine.
She wanted to hear her father again.
She wanted to throw the cassette across the room.
She wanted to rewind twenty-six years and force him to make a different choice.
Instead, she whispered, "He knew where she was when I was sixteen."
Dominic answered carefully.
"Yes."
"He could have told me."
"Yes."
"He didn't."
"No."
Hannah looked at him angrily.
"Stop agreeing with me."
"Would you prefer I defend him?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I."
That answer took some of the heat out of her anger.
Luca walked to the window.
"Where did your parents meet?"
Hannah swallowed and forced herself back into the present.
"My father always said they met in a laundromat."
"Which one?"
"I don't know."
"Did he ever name the neighborhood?"
She searched her memory.
"Red Hook."
Dominic stood.
"We start there."
Hannah shook her head.
"There were probably twenty laundromats in Red Hook twenty-six years ago."
"Then we check twenty."
"At eight in the morning?"
"Matteo knows we found your father's storage unit."
"How?"
Dominic looked at the cassette.
"Because someone got into the medical suite and delivered this before we arrived."
Hannah frowned.
"That makes no sense."
"Exactly."
Luca turned from the window.
"The intruder didn't steal anything."
"He gave us evidence."
Hannah stared at him.
"Someone wants us to find the truth."
Dominic nodded.
"Or someone wants us to find a particular version of it."
The distinction unsettled her.
They returned to the medical suite before leaving for Red Hook.
The girls were eating scrambled eggs from plastic bowls under Rosa's supervision.
When Hannah entered, all three erupted in excited noise.
"Hanna!"
"Hanna!"
"Hanna!"
The sound hit her harder than the DNA report had.
She crouched to their height.
"Good morning, troublemakers."
Emma held up a spoon covered in egg.
"Eat."
Hannah laughed despite herself.
"That's two words in less than twenty-four hours."
Dominic stood in the doorway, stunned.
Lily pointed at him.
"Da."
Dominic stopped breathing.
Hannah looked at the child.
"What did you say?"
Lily smiled.
"Da."
Dominic took one step forward.
"Lily?"
The little girl lifted both arms.
"Dad."
Dominic Vale, a man who could order a restaurant emptied without raising his voice, dropped to his knees on the floor.
Lily toddled into him.
He buried his face in her hair.
Grace watched them and clapped.
"Dad."
Emma joined.
"Dad."
Hannah looked away because the moment felt too private to witness.
When she glanced back, Dominic's eyes were wet.
He made no attempt to hide it this time.
"You three waited two years just to gang up on me in one day?"
Lily touched his scar.
"Dad."
He laughed once, broken and disbelieving.
Hannah felt something inside her shift.
Whatever Dominic Vale was outside this room, he loved these children without restraint.
That did not make him safe.
It made him harder to categorize.
Rosa wiped her eyes.
"Elena would have been so happy."
The room went still.
One of the girls looked toward Rosa.
"Mama?"
Rosa's face crumpled.
Hannah knelt beside Grace.
"Your mama loved you very much."
Grace stared at her.
"Mama."
"I'm Hannah."
"Hanna."
"That's right."
Dominic watched the exchange in silence.
Then Luca entered and held up his phone.
"I found the laundromat."
Everyone turned.
"Thomas and Catherine Mercer listed the same Red Hook address on their marriage application."
"The building is still there."
Hannah stood.
"What's there now?"
"A closed laundromat called Blue Harbor Laundry."
Dominic looked at the tape label.
"Blue ledger."
Luca nodded.
"It's been abandoned nine years."
An hour later, they stood outside a narrow brick storefront beneath a rusted sign.
The windows were papered over.
The front lock had been cut recently.
Luca crouched beside it.
"We're not first."
Dominic drew a pistol from beneath his coat.
Hannah stared at it.
"Is that necessary?"
"Yes."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
They entered through the side door.
Dust covered old washing machines lined against the walls.
Someone had searched the office.
Cabinet doors hung open.
A desk had been split apart.
Hannah's stomach sank.
"Matteo got here first."
"Maybe."
Luca examined muddy footprints.
"Two people."
Hannah walked between the machines, remembering stories her father had told about meeting her mother when he spilled detergent across the floor.
One machine near the back was painted blue while all the others were white.
She stopped.
"Dominic."
He followed her gaze.
The blue machine was unplugged.
Hannah opened it.
Empty.
She ran her hands around the drum.
Nothing.
Then she noticed one screw inside was newer than the others.
"Luca."
He used a multitool to remove the rear panel.
A plastic-wrapped notebook dropped onto the floor.
Blue leather.
Hannah's heart jumped.
Dominic picked it up.
The first pages contained freight account numbers and dates from 2000.
Later pages listed names.
Politicians.
Dock supervisors.
Police officers.
Doctors.
At the bottom of one page was Dr. Samuel Kline.
Beside his name were the words TWIN TRANSFER and M.V.
Hannah's mouth went dry.
Luca turned another page.
There, in Thomas Mercer's handwriting, was a notation dated eighteen months earlier.
ELENA CONTACTED ME.
SHE KNOWS.
MEETING FRIDAY.
NEVER ARRIVED.
Hannah looked at Dominic.
"The accident was Thursday night."
Dominic's face became rigid.
"Yes."
Luca turned the final page.
A recent note had been added in different ink.
The handwriting was not Thomas's.
It contained only one sentence.
SHE NEVER DIED.
Before leaving for Red Hook, Hannah listened to Thomas's cassette a second time alone.
Dominic waited outside the library door.
She replayed the part where her father described seeing Helena from a distance at sixteen.
Thomas's voice broke when he said he had watched the girl buy a soda and argue cheerfully with a friend on a sidewalk.
"You looked happy."
He had recorded the sentence for Elena, even though Hannah was the intended listener.
"I was afraid telling you the truth would make you less happy."
Hannah paused the tape.
"You didn't get to decide that."
She said it aloud to an empty room.
The door opened slightly.
Dominic stood there.
"I wasn't listening."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I was listening to the part where you spoke."
Hannah wiped her eyes.
"He kept making choices for us because he thought fear made him wise."
Dominic leaned against the door.
"Most controlling men call it protection."
"Including you?"
"Especially me."
Hannah looked at him in surprise.
"That sounded almost self-aware."
"Don't spread it around."
For the first time since Bellafonte, she laughed without immediately feeling guilty afterward.
The sound startled both of them.
Then one of the girls shouted Hannah's name upstairs, and the moment passed.
But something had shifted.
Dominic was no longer only the man who had forced her into a car.
May you like
He was becoming a man capable of recognizing the same mistakes in himself that had damaged the Mercer family.
Whether he could change them was another question.
