Chapter 8 - The Boy Who Waited Fifteen Years
The first photograph showed Elijah Mercer at twenty-six.
He had dark hair, tired eyes, and a narrow scar above his left eyebrow.
He stood outside a modest apartment building in Pittsburgh.
Beside him was a woman in her sixties.
Neither appeared to know the photograph was being taken.
Daniel studied the image for a long time.
He remembered Eli at eleven.
Small.
Quiet.
Always carrying a backpack that looked too large for his shoulders.
He remembered the boy standing by the fence the night they ran away.
Please wait for me.
Daniel closed his eyes.
He had spent fifteen years believing he had done everything possible to protect his brothers.
Now he wondered whether he had abandoned someone else.
Adrien noticed.
“Daniel, don't do that.”
Daniel looked up.
“Do what?”
“Blame yourself for something you couldn't have understood at fifteen.”
Daniel's voice was strained.
“He asked me for help.”
“You were a child.”
“I was old enough to know he was scared.”
Adrien sat beside him.
“You were old enough to be scared yourself.”
Daniel looked away.
Agent Sloan entered the interview room.
“We've confirmed that Elijah Mercer is alive.”
Marc exhaled.
“Thank God.”
“But there's more.”
She placed a file on the table.
Elijah had spent much of his adolescence moving between temporary guardianships.
His records contained unexplained changes in legal custody.
Several addresses were missing.
At seventeen, he had run away from a group home.
At nineteen, he enrolled in community college under his legal name.
He later worked as a computer technician.
Three years ago, he began filing public-records requests connected to the Harbor Children's Initiative.
Adrien leaned forward.
“He was investigating them?”
Sloan nodded.
“And he contacted several former employees.”
“Did he find anything?”
“We don't know.”
Daniel studied the photograph.
“Where is he now?”
Sloan hesitated.
“He left his apartment six days ago.”
Marc's expression changed.
“Left?”
“His landlord says he packed one suitcase and told a neighbor he was going to settle an old debt.”
Daniel felt a chill.
“An old debt?”
Sloan nodded.
“He also withdrew most of his savings.”
Adrien frowned.
“Has anyone heard from him since?”
“Not directly.”
Daniel stood.
“We need to find him.”
Sloan raised a hand.
“We're working on it. But there is something else you should see.”
She opened a second folder.
Inside were copies of emails Elijah had sent to a former Harbor Children's Initiative accountant.
The messages were careful.
Persistent.
And increasingly urgent.
In one, Elijah wrote:
I know what happened to the Rousseau money.
In another:
I know who authorized the transfer.
And in the final email, dated eight days earlier:
If you won't tell them the truth, I will.
Adrien read the message twice.
“Who was the accountant?”
Sloan looked at him.
“Samuel Price.”
Laurent stared.
“Samuel?”
The man who had called him about the hidden box.
The man who had worked with his father.
The man who had promised to reveal the truth if the house ever changed hands.
Laurent felt his stomach drop.
“He wasn't just Dad's friend?”
Sloan shook her head.
“Apparently, he handled financial records for several construction projects connected to Harbor.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Where is Samuel now?”
Sloan's expression hardened.
“We went to his home this morning.”
“And?”
“The house was empty.”
Laurent swallowed.
“Did he leave?”
“We don't know.”
Sloan placed one final photograph on the table.
It showed Samuel Price standing beside Victor Harlan.
And between them stood a younger man.
Laurent recognized him immediately.
His father.
Thomas Rousseau.
But what frightened him wasn't the photograph.
May you like
It was the handwritten date beneath it.
The picture had been taken three days after Thomas's official date of death.
