Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN IN ROOM 214
Garrison was not dead.
But someone had once tried very hard to make Julian’s family believe he was.
That night, he finally told me why.
The original Blackbird investigation had not simply fallen apart after Richard Mercer died.
It had been compromised.
Witnesses withdrew.
Records vanished.
One federal informant disappeared.
Then Garrison’s wife, Elise, was killed in a highway collision two days before she was scheduled to testify before a grand jury.
The truck driver responsible had no criminal record.
No connection to Beacon.
No obvious motive.
But six months later, investigators discovered a payment to his wife from a shell company associated with Richard Mercer.
Before they could question him again, he vanished.
“So you staged your death?” I asked.
“Not exactly.”
Garrison sat across from me in the farmhouse kitchen.
The room felt different now.
I had once thought of it as the quiet house belonging to a lonely man.
Now I saw exits.
Sight lines.
A reinforced back door.
Security cameras concealed under the eaves.
This had never been an ordinary farmhouse.
“After Elise died, there was an attack on my vehicle.”
“What kind of attack?”
“Brake line.”
My stomach turned.
“I survived.”
“Obviously.”
“Richard Mercer’s people apparently received different information.”
“That you died?”
“That I was critically injured and removed from the case.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Eleven months.”
Then he had returned under a new assignment.
Quietly.
His identity had been buried in sealed federal records.
By the time he came back to Cedar Hollow years later, most people only remembered the public part of his career.
County sheriff.
Widower.
Retired.
Harmless.
Julian’s family had believed Blackbird disappeared forever.
Until Julian saw Garrison standing beside me.
“Why live across from us?” I asked.
His silence answered first.
“No.”
I stood.
“You did not move there by accident.”
“No.”
“You were watching Julian.”
“At first.”
The words cut deeper than I expected.
“At first?”
“I bought the farmhouse because financial records connected Julian to one of his father’s dormant companies.”
“So our entire friendship was surveillance?”
“No.”
“Then what was it?”
Garrison stood too.
“You waved at me every morning.”
I froze.
“You brought Ranger chicken when he was sick. You shoveled my steps before I woke up during that ice storm. You left Christmas cookies on my porch even though I never gave you anything in return.”
His voice softened.
“You became a person. Not a case.”
I looked away.
“And when Julian hurt you, I could no longer pretend the investigation was abstract.”
A knock came at the door.
Three slow taps.
Garrison reached for the old revolver stored above the kitchen cabinet.
“Who is it?”
“Federal.”
Two agents entered.
One carried an evidence envelope.
“We found something in Unit 214.”
My pulse jumped.
“What?”
The agent looked at me.
“A recording.”
It was an old digital file recovered from a damaged drive.
The woman speaking was Elise Blackwood.
Garrison sat down before they even played it.
Her voice filled the kitchen.
Calm.
Professional.
Terrified.
She described unauthorized specimen storage.
False donor codes.
Private payments.
Then she said a name.
Richard Mercer.
Another.
Martin Halpern.
Then:
“Julian has begun attending meetings with his father. He understands the inheritance problem.”
I watched Garrison close his eyes.
Elise continued.
“They’ve created a protocol for preserving Mercer-line genetic material.”
I could barely breathe.
“They call it B-17.”
The agent stopped the recording.
I stared at him.
“What is Mercer-line genetic material?”
“We believe samples from male family members.”
“Grant?”
“Possibly.”
“And embryos?”
“Possibly.”
“Mine?”
Nobody answered.
I stood.
“Tell me.”
The agent looked down at the folder.
“Your records show seventeen eggs were retrieved during your second IVF cycle.”
“I know.”
“How many were you told were mature?”
“Six.”
The agent slowly looked up.
“According to internal lab notes, fourteen were mature.”
My knees weakened.
“Where are the other eight?”
“That is what we’re trying to determine.”
Then Garrison’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“When?”
He stood.
“Lock the property down.”
He hung up.
“What happened?”
“Halpern.”
“What about him?”
Garrison looked at the federal agents.
“He disappeared.”
The agent cursed.
Garrison grabbed his coat.
Then the second agent’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
And went white.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward us.
A traffic camera photograph showed Halpern’s car leaving Rhode Island.
Someone was sitting beside him.
May you like
Chloe.
And she was no longer visibly pregnant.
