Thomas arrived at Mr. Harrison's office carrying a cardboard folder and a small leather notebook. He looked older than he had during our first meeting, and his usual habit of rubbing his watch had become almost constant. When he saw the hospital authorization on the desk, he stopped just inside the doorway.
“So you've found it,” he said.
Mr. Harrison asked him to sit down.
“We need you to explain why your signature appears on a document authorizing Rebecca's transfer. You previously told us that you had no involvement in her medical arrangements.”
Thomas placed his folder on the table but did not open it.
“I signed a document, yes. But I didn't arrange the transfer, and I didn't know they were using a false identity.”
“Then tell us exactly what happened.”
Thomas took a long breath. He said that on the morning after Rebecca's fall, Richard had called him into his office and told him that a family member needed to be moved to another medical facility. Richard claimed that the patient was connected to a confidential business dispute and that the hospital required a company representative to confirm the transfer.
“I told him I wasn't a family member,” Thomas explained. “He said the form was administrative, not medical. He told me to sign it so the staff could proceed without delay.”
“Did you read it?” I asked.
“I read the first page. It said the transfer was being requested for privacy reasons. I didn't see the page that listed the patient's identity.”
Mr. Harrison turned the document toward him.
“Your signature appears beneath a statement confirming that the patient was known to you.”
Thomas looked at the page, and his face tightened.
“I didn't write that.”
“Did you sign the page?”
He examined it for several seconds.
“No. I signed a different sheet. Richard said the original would be attached later.”
The distinction was important, but it did not establish that the signature on the hospital document had been forged. Mr. Harrison photographed the page and explained that a handwriting examination would be needed to determine whether the signature was genuine.
Thomas opened his cardboard folder. Inside were photocopies of old company correspondence, a calendar, and a sheet of handwritten notes. He said he had kept the material because he had begun to suspect that Richard was using him to approve transactions he did not understand.
“Why didn't you tell us about this during the first interview?” I asked.
“Because I was ashamed. I knew I had signed something, and I thought it might make me look guilty. I wanted to believe that I had only helped with an ordinary administrative matter.”
I understood the fear, but I was growing tired of hearing how often adults had chosen silence because they were afraid of the consequences of telling the truth.
“What was the second patient you mentioned?” I asked.
Thomas opened his notebook and turned to a page dated October 17, the day Rebecca had been transferred. Beneath the date were two names. The first was Rebecca's temporary identity. The second was a name I did not recognize: Daniel Mercer.
“He was another patient who was moved from the same hospital that week,” Thomas explained. “Richard told me the two cases were unrelated, but the paperwork came through the same office. Both transfers involved private payments, incomplete identification, and instructions to restrict outside inquiries.”
“Was Daniel Mercer connected to Richard's company?”
“Not directly, as far as I knew. But I saw his name in the financial records. There was a payment to a medical services company that appeared beside his case number.”
Mr. Harrison leaned forward.
“Do you know where he was transferred?”
Thomas shook his head. “I never found out. I tried to ask the hospital clerk, but she told me the records were confidential.”
I thought of Rebecca's memory of another man at the hospital, the ring marked with a horse, and the payment routed through Peter's consulting company. The second patient might have been connected to the same network, or the shared paperwork might have been a coincidence. We needed more evidence before drawing a conclusion.
Thomas then produced a photocopy of a company calendar. Several dates had been circled, including October 14, the night Rebecca disappeared, and October 17, the day she was moved. Beside the later date was a handwritten note: Transfer completed. Original file to remain with P.S.
“Who wrote this?” Mr. Harrison asked.
“I don't know. The handwriting looks like Peter's, but I can't be certain.”
I stared at the initials. Peter Shaw had been involved in the financial arrangements, visited Rebecca at the hospital, and apparently had access to records connected to her transfer. Yet the note also suggested that someone had retained the original file rather than allowing it to remain with the hospital.
“Did you ever see the original file?” I asked.
“No. But I heard Richard arguing with Peter about it. Richard wanted the documents destroyed. Peter said they had to be kept until the account was settled.”
The phrase matched the note Margaret had written on the back of the photograph: The original stays with Peter until the account is settled.
Mr. Harrison placed the calendar beside the photograph.
“We need to establish what original document they were discussing,” he said. “It could have been the ledger, the hospital file, or another record entirely.”
Thomas nodded. He said that after Rebecca's transfer, Richard ordered the company staff to remove several boxes of archived documents. Thomas had helped carry them to a rented office, but he had not been told what happened to them afterward. Some boxes contained ordinary invoices and payroll records. Others were marked with initials that did not match any department.
“Did you see a blue box?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not then. I heard Rebecca mention a blue folder once, but I don't remember the context.”
I thought of the blue wooden box Grandpa had kept in storage, the one containing copies of the financial records and Rebecca's letters. Perhaps she had used a blue folder for the original documents, and the memory had changed over time. Or perhaps there had been more than one container, each holding a different part of the truth.
Thomas then described a conversation he had overheard between Richard and Peter several weeks after the transfer. Richard was angry because the second patient had been moved without the arrangement he expected. Peter told him that the decision had already been made and that no one would be able to trace the payment without the original account records.
“What decision?” I asked.
“I don't know. They stopped talking when they saw me.”
Mr. Harrison asked Thomas whether he had ever met Daniel Mercer. He said he had seen a photograph attached to a company document but had never spoken to him. The photograph showed a man in his forties with dark hair, a narrow face, and a small scar near his left eyebrow.
Thomas handed us the copy.
I studied the man's face. I had never seen him before, but the photograph made me uneasy. There was something familiar about the shape of his eyes, though I could not identify why.
“Do you know what happened to him?” I asked.
“No,” Thomas replied. “I tried to find out years later, but the name was common enough that I couldn't be certain I had found the right person.”
Mr. Harrison photographed the document and added it to the evidence file. He explained that the second patient's identity and transfer records would need to be investigated separately, especially if they were connected to the same financial accounts.
Before Thomas left, he gave us one final item: a letter Richard had sent him shortly after Grandpa began asking questions about the company. The letter instructed Thomas to destroy any old paperwork that might connect the business to the private medical transfers.
Thomas had kept it because he believed the request was improper.
The letter was dated eight years earlier, just before Grandpa discovered that Rebecca was alive.
I read it twice. Richard had known that the records might be important long before Grandpa found Rebecca. He had tried to destroy the paperwork, but Thomas's decision to keep a copy had preserved another piece of evidence.
“Why did you hold on to it?” I asked.
Thomas looked at me.
“Because I knew something was wrong. I couldn't prove what it was, but I didn't want to be the person who erased the evidence.”
For the first time, I felt a measure of respect for him. He had been frightened, and he had made mistakes, but he had eventually chosen to preserve the records rather than destroy them.
After he left, Mr. Harrison contacted the hospital records office and requested a review of both patient transfers. He also asked the financial specialist to trace the payments associated with Daniel Mercer's case. The specialist agreed to compare them with the entries in the original ledger.
That afternoon, I visited Rebecca. She was sitting in her chair by the window, her hands resting on a folded blanket. I showed her the photograph of Daniel Mercer and asked whether she recognized him.
She stared at the picture for a long time.
Then she began to tremble.
“Man,” she whispered.
“Do you know him?”
She nodded.
I leaned closer. “Was he at the hospital?”
Rebecca's eyes filled with tears. She pointed toward the photograph, then toward the door.
“Not… doctor.”
“I understand. He wasn't a doctor?”
She shook her head.
“Richard?”
Another shake of her head.
I waited while she struggled to speak. Finally, she whispered a name.
“Peter.”
I felt a chill move through me. Peter Shaw had visited the hospital, but the photograph showed Daniel Mercer, a different man. Rebecca's reaction suggested that she recognized him, though she might have been connecting him to a memory that had become confused over time.
“Was Daniel Mercer with Peter?” I asked.
Rebecca closed her eyes. Her breathing became uneven, and the nurse encouraged her to rest. I stopped asking questions and held her hand until she settled.
Before I left, she opened her eyes and whispered something I could barely hear.
“Grandpa knew.”
I froze.
“Grandpa knew Daniel Mercer?”
She nodded weakly.
I wanted to ask how she knew, but she had already grown tired. The nurse reminded me that we needed to give her time and avoid overwhelming her with questions. I promised to return the next day.
On the drive home, I thought about Grandpa's years of searching, his discovery that Rebecca was alive, and the records he had collected before his death. If he knew Daniel Mercer, he might have known more about the second patient than he had ever told me. Perhaps the information was contained in the sealed documents in his study.
When I arrived, Mr. Harrison was waiting with a new report from the financial specialist. The payment connected to Daniel Mercer's transfer had been made through the same account network used for the company transactions. More importantly, the account had received a substantial deposit several days before Rebecca's fall.
The source of that deposit was a trust associated with my grandfather's former business dealings.
I stared at the report.
“Grandpa's money?”
“Not necessarily money he personally transferred,” Mr. Harrison said. “The trust was connected to an older investment arrangement. We need to establish who controlled the account and why the funds were moved.”
I remembered the two hundred and eighty thousand dollars taken through the fraudulent loan application and the payments that had followed. The trail now appeared to lead beyond Richard's company, into financial arrangements that predated Rebecca's disappearance.
Mr. Harrison opened the sealed envelope Grandpa had left for me, the one we had not yet fully examined because it contained several documents that required careful review. Among them was a letter dated years before my birth. It referred to an investment partner named Daniel Mercer and a disagreement over the management of a private account.
The letter did not explain what had happened, but it established that Grandpa had known the name long before Rebecca's fall.
I sat down slowly.
Grandpa had never told me about Daniel Mercer. He had kept the letter alongside records connected to the trust, as though he believed the information might become important later.
“Why would he keep this?” I asked.
Mr. Harrison examined the document.
“Perhaps because he knew the account was connected to a larger problem. Or perhaps he was preserving records in case someone challenged the trust. We should not assume his reasons until we find more evidence.”
I nodded, though I felt the weight of another question pressing against me. Grandpa had protected me from the truth when I was young, but he had also spent years collecting the pieces that might eventually reveal it. He had known enough to prepare for my parents' return, and perhaps enough to anticipate that the financial investigation would lead back to him.
That evening, I received another message from the unknown number.
Daniel Mercer was not moved because of an accident. He was moved because he knew who controlled the account. Grandpa tried to protect him, but someone close to the family betrayed that arrangement.
I showed the message to Mr. Harrison.
He read it carefully and set the phone down.
“We have a name, a financial connection, and a second medical transfer. We also have an anonymous source making claims we cannot yet verify.”
“Do you think Daniel is still alive?”
“I don't know.”
I looked at the photograph again. Daniel Mercer had been a real person, connected to Grandpa's former business dealings and the payments that preceded Rebecca's fall. If he had survived the transfer, he might know why Rebecca had been hidden and who had ordered it.
The question was no longer simply what Richard had done to my mother. It was why the people involved had been so determined to keep two patients out of reach—and why my grandfather's money had been part of the same trail.
I placed the photograph beside the letter from Grandpa.
For the first time, I wondered whether his final secret had not been about protecting the house or securing my inheritance at all.
Perhaps he had been trying to finish an investigation that began long before I was born.
Click here to continue reading: PART 17: Grandpa’s Sealed Records Revealed Why Daniel Mercer Had Been Hidden, and the Person Who Finally Agreed to Speak Knew More About My Childhood Than I Did
The Parents Who Left Me Behind Returned After Seventeen Years, Certain That Grief Had Made Me Easy to Push Aside
Part 16 of 20
