Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Audit
While federal agents escorted Celeste from the building, I accompanied Thomas Sterling and his team down to the suburban home in Brookline where Daniel Mercer was hiding.
The rain had stopped, leaving the asphalt slick and reflective under a pale morning sun. Three dark sedans pulled into the driveway of Sophie Grant’s quiet home.
Thomas glanced at me from the passenger seat. "You don't have to be inside for this, Elena. You've given us more than enough to put them away for decades."
"I need to see the end of it, Thomas," I said quietly. "I buried a ghost five years ago. I need to make sure he stays in the ground."
We stepped onto the porch. Thomas knocked heavily on the solid oak door.
It opened slowly. Daniel stood in the entryway. He hadn't slept; his eyes were bloodshot, his clothes wrinkled, his hands trembling. Behind him in the living room, Sophie sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, weeping quietly as her sister held the newborn.
Daniel didn't look at the federal agents. His eyes went directly to me.
"Elena," he choked out. "Please..."
"Daniel Mercer," Thomas announced loudly, reading from the federal warrant. "You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, identity theft, and obstruction of justice."
Daniel didn't resist as an agent stepped forward and pulled his arms behind his back. The handcuffs snapped shut with a definitive, metallic sound.
"Elena, look at me!" Daniel pleaded as they led him down the walkway. "I loved you! I never stopped loving you! Everything my mother did, she said it was to protect our future!"
I stood on the porch, watching the man I had mourned for half a decade.
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"If you loved me, Daniel," I said, my voice carrying clearly across the quiet neighborhood, "you would have let me know you were alive. You didn't stay dead to protect me. You stayed dead because it was easy."
He collapsed into the back seat of the police cruiser, weeping hysterically as the door slammed shut.
