Chapter 5 - My Father Bought the Bomb
I drove three miles before pulling onto the shoulder.
My hands would not stop shaking.
The invoice sat on my phone screen like an accusation.
Thomas Carter.
My father.
Two marine charges. Remote detonation assembly. Delivery to Pier 17.
Purchased six days before the explosion.
I called the number that had sent it.
A man answered.
“You left the estate faster than I expected.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Gabriel Mercer.”
Mercer.
The name Evelyn had used.
“You sold my father the explosives.”
“No.”
“You sent me the invoice.”
“I sent you what someone wanted investigators to find.”
I gripped the steering wheel.
“Then tell me what’s real.”
“Your father’s signature.”
My stomach dropped.
“So he did buy them.”
“He signed the order. He did not know what was on the second page.”
“Where are you?”
“Not somewhere you should come alone.”
“I’ve been alone for twenty-three years.”
“That’s exactly why you’re still alive.”
He gave me an address in Ventura.
The building was an old marine repair shop tucked behind a boatyard. Gabriel Mercer was in his late sixties with oil under his fingernails and a scar across his throat.
He locked the door behind me.
“Show me the key.”
I stepped back.
“How do you know about it?”
“Mara told me she kept it.”
“Everybody knew Mara except me.”
His face softened.
“She loved you.”
“Then why did she lie to me?”
“Because your father asked her to.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Fair.”
He opened a steel cabinet and removed a binder.
Inside were copies of old purchase orders.
My father had signed a blank authorization for emergency hull repairs. Someone replaced the attached page afterward.
“Julian?” I asked.
“Julian paid me to deliver a crate to the yacht.”
“So Evelyn was right.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked me in the eye.
“Julian believed the crate contained illegal financial records Thomas wanted destroyed.”
I stared at him.
“He didn’t know it was a bomb?”
“Not then.”
“Who did?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“The person who called me with the final instructions.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
I laughed once.
My mother, Sarah Carter, had died when I was three.
“That’s impossible.”
“I spoke to her two hours before the yacht exploded.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
He reached into the binder and pulled out a Polaroid.
A woman stood beside Pier 17 wearing sunglasses and a white coat.
I knew her face from the framed photographs Mara kept hidden in a box.
Sarah.
My mother.
The date written beneath the image was the morning of the explosion.
I looked at Gabriel.
“She was dead.”
“No, Emily.”
He shook his head.
“Your mother was the one who warned Thomas there was a bomb on the yacht.”
“Then where was she after the explosion?”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“That’s the question that got Mara killed.”
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