Chapter 13 - Mara Returns
Rachel shot out of the interview room before the detective could stop her.
Vivian was already through the lobby doors.
"Vivian!"
Ethan caught Rachel's arm as Gerald Pike stepped between them.
"Don't touch her," Ethan said.
Pike raised both hands. "I'm trying to prevent a scene."
"Your client just ran from a police station after getting a message from a missing witness."
The detective pushed past them. "Nobody leaves."
Outside, Vivian had stopped beside her car.
Not because she changed her mind.
Because Caleb was leaning against the driver's door.
"Lose something?" he asked.
Vivian's face tightened. "Move."
"Mara texted you."
"That is none of your business."
Rachel walked up behind the detective. "It became my business when you forged my medical consent."
Vivian looked from Rachel to Ethan to Caleb.
Then she put her phone in her purse.
"You have no idea what Mara wants."
Rachel's phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
HAMLIN STORAGE, UNIT 214. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE ORIGINALS.
Attached was a photo.
Mara sat beside a metal storage door holding a cardboard archive box.
Rachel showed Ethan.
"She's alive."
The detective read over her shoulder. "You're not going alone."
Mara didn't answer calls.
She sent one more text ten minutes later.
NO POLICE IN THE UNIT. THEY CAN WAIT OUTSIDE.
The detective refused that condition.
Mara responded with a picture of a lighter held over a stack of documents.
ONE PERSON.
Rachel stared at the flame.
"She isn't threatening us. She's terrified."
"Terrified witnesses can do irrational things," the detective said.
"So can cornered defendants," Rachel replied, looking at Vivian.
In the end, they compromised badly.
Rachel entered the storage corridor alone wearing a wire she didn't trust, while police waited outside the building and Ethan watched the live audio feed from a van.
Unit 214 stood open six inches.
Rachel pushed it wider.
"Mara?"
"Close it."
Mara sat on an overturned plastic crate behind a row of boxes.
Her hair was greasy. Her eyes were ringed dark from no sleep.
Rachel shut the door.
"You disappeared."
"I had to."
"Why leave your phone?"
"Because Halpern's people had been tracking it."
Rachel glanced at the boxes. "Where have you been?"
"Getting what I should have taken six years ago."
Mara pulled three items onto a folding table.
A laboratory transfer log.
A small digital recorder.
A printed financial ledger.
Rachel's breathing slowed.
"Originals?"
"The transfer log is. The ledger is a copy from Brighton's internal books. The recording is the original device."
"Why did you keep it?"
"Because the day after the switch, Halpern told me if I spoke, he'd say I acted alone."
Mara pushed the log toward Rachel.
There it was.
C-17.
Release origin: Northstar.
Destination: Brighton.
Receiving lab: Mara Ellis.
Authorized override: A. Halpern.
Administrative sponsor: V. Mercer.
Rachel touched nothing.
Mara opened the archive box wider. Beneath the three main pieces of evidence were photocopied scheduling sheets with patient names blacked out and specimen codes left visible.
Rachel counted them.
C-04. C-09. C-12. C-17.
"How many transfers did Halpern manipulate?"
Mara shook her head. "I only know what I saw. But after your cycle, I started checking cases that had unusual private billing. There were more than one."
"How many?"
"Enough that I stopped believing yours was an exception."
A cart squealed somewhere outside the unit. Rachel looked at the metal door until the sound moved away.
"You understand this could send people to prison."
Mara gave a tired laugh. "That's why I spent six years waking up every time a car slowed near my house."
"Why now?"
"Because your son showed up in a DNA database. Secrets are safe until computers connect families that never meant to meet."
Rachel looked at the ledger.
Payments filled three pages.
Mercer Foundation donation.
Private consulting fee to Halpern.
Records management expense.
Then one payment several months after Noah's birth.
MARTIN KELL LAW OFFICES - $28,500.
Rachel frowned.
"We thought that twenty-eight thousand went to Brighton."
"It passed through a clinic holding account," Mara said. "I never knew why."
Rachel's mind raced.
Kell had said Theodore planned a trust amendment.
Had Vivian paid him?
Or had Theodore?
"Play the recording."
Mara picked up the device.
Her thumb hovered over the button.
A metallic bang sounded outside the unit.
Both women froze.
Another bang.
Then footsteps.
Rachel touched the wire beneath her shirt.
"Police are outside."
Mara's eyes widened. "You brought them?"
"Outside the building."
"I told you—"
"I'm not getting trapped in a storage unit with evidence people have already broken into my house for. Play it."
Mara pressed the button.
Static.
Then Dr. Halpern's voice.
"There are cleaner ways to do this, Vivian."
Vivian answered, sharp and unmistakable.
"Anonymous material defeats the purpose. Use Caleb's sample. Ethan can never know why."
A pause on the recording.
Halpern spoke again.
"And if Theodore finds out Ethan isn't his son?"
Rachel stopped breathing.
Vivian's recorded voice came through the tiny speaker.
"Then I'll handle Theodore too."
The storage door jerked upward three inches from the outside.
Mara screamed.
May you like
Rachel grabbed the recorder as fingers appeared beneath the metal door.
