Chapter 13 - Two Brothers and One Dead Man’s SecretMark arrived twenty minutes after David called.
Rachel wanted him kept outside.
Margaret insisted he come in.
When Mark saw the photograph, he sat down without being asked.
“Where did you get this?”
“My father’s album,” David said.
Mark touched the image.
“That’s Daniel.”
“Your father?”
“My father was Richard Ellison.”
“Apparently not Andrew’s.”
Mark looked up sharply.
David explained what Margaret remembered.
Years earlier, Thomas Mercer had known a man named Daniel Ellison.
Margaret believed Daniel was Andrew’s biological father.
Mark stared at the photograph.
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.”
Margaret spoke.
“Thomas met Daniel through business.”
“Why would he put Andrew in the trust?”
“He didn’t put Andrew.”
Margaret rubbed her forehead.
“I’m remembering badly.”
David stiffened.
After everything Vanessa had done to manipulate her memory, every moment of uncertainty felt dangerous.
Margaret closed her eyes.
“The alternate trustee was Daniel.”
Mark went still.
“My father’s name was Richard.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Are you certain?”
Mark almost laughed.
“Yes.”
Then he stopped.
A strange expression crossed his face.
“My father’s legal name…”
David waited.
“Richard Daniel Ellison.”
Silence.
Margaret pointed at the photograph.
“That’s him.”
Mark stared at it.
“No.”
His voice became quieter.
“That can’t be him.”
“Why?”
“My father died when I was nine.”
Margaret’s eyes widened.
“This photograph was taken in 2003.”
Mark would have been around seventeen.
David turned the picture over.
Mark went pale.
“My mother told me he died in 1995.”
Nobody spoke.
David’s family scandal had just collided with Mark’s.
They searched public records.
Richard Daniel Ellison had not died in 1995.
There was no death certificate.
Instead, a man with the same full name appeared in Nevada property records until 2007.
Then vanished.
Mark sat motionless.
“My whole life…”
David almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
“Focus.”
Mark looked up.
“Andrew?”
“If Andrew is connected to your father, we need to know how.”
Mark rubbed his face.
“My mother remarried. I never knew any half-brother.”
Margaret pointed at Andrew’s current photograph on David’s phone.
Mark studied it.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
“I’ve seen this.”
“Where?”
“My mother’s house.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
He swallowed.
“A photograph in a drawer.”
David leaned closer.
“With who?”
“My father.”
They drove to Mark’s mother’s house that night.
She had died two years earlier, and Mark still owned the property while deciding whether to sell.
Dust covered the furniture.
Old family albums remained inside a cabinet.
They found the photograph after forty minutes.
Richard Daniel Ellison stood beside a teenage boy.
Andrew.
On the back:
Daniel & Drew — Reno, 2004.
Mark sat on the floor.
“Drew.”
David looked at him.
“Andrew.”
“My mother used to say my father left because of ‘Drew.’ I thought she meant drugs.”
The truth began assembling itself.
Mark had a half-brother he never knew.
Andrew had later taken the surname Blake.
Somewhere along the way, Andrew became connected to Vanessa.
But was he really her brother?
David called Rachel.
She answered immediately.
“Ask Mom about Vanessa’s family.”
Rachel put Margaret on speaker.
David asked one question.
“Did you ever meet Andrew before Vanessa and I got married?”
Margaret was silent.
“No.”
David’s chest tightened.
Vanessa had always said Andrew lived out west.
He rarely attended family events.
When David met him, Vanessa introduced him simply as her older brother.
David had never questioned it.
Why would anyone?
Mark opened his laptop.
They searched marriage records, birth records, obituaries.
Vanessa Blake.
Mother: Eleanor Blake.
Father: George Blake.
One sibling.
A sister.
Not a brother.
David stared at the screen.
“Andrew isn’t related to Vanessa.”
Mark whispered, “Then who the hell is he?”
A message arrived on David’s phone.
Unknown number.
For a moment he expected another threat.
Instead, it was a photograph.
Margaret.
Standing outside the Mercer house months earlier.
Clearly taken without her knowledge.
Then another photograph.
Rachel getting into her car.
Then David at an airport.
Then Vanessa kissing Mark outside the downtown apartment.
Mark stared.
“Who sent these?”
A final message appeared.
You are asking the wrong question.
David typed:
Who are you?
No response.
He typed again.
What question should I be asking?
This time the reply came.
Not who is Andrew.
David waited.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
Ask what Thomas Mercer did to his father.
Margaret’s face went white when David read it aloud over the phone.
“Mom?”
She said nothing.
“Who was Andrew’s father?”
Margaret whispered, “Richard.”
“What did Dad do to him?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
May you like
Her voice broke.
“Thomas ruined him.”
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