CHAPTER 7 — THE SECOND ABDUCTION
The hospital went into lockdown.
Every exit was sealed.
Police searched stairwells, service corridors, laundry carts, and delivery vehicles.
But Elias was gone.
The guard outside his room had been injected with a veterinary sedative. Security footage showed a man wearing hospital scrubs entering the restricted floor with a stolen badge.
He covered his face with a surgical mask.
At 1:47 a.m., he pushed Elias into a service elevator.
At 1:51, the cameras near the loading dock went dark.
At 1:56, a white medical transport van left the hospital.
The license plates had been stolen.
Detective Morales arrived before dawn.
“This wasn’t Brenda or Melanie,” she said.
“My mother is under guard, and Melanie is in jail.”
“Gregory’s associates,” I replied.
“Most likely.”
I showed her the photograph of Wyatt with the red X.
“Where is he?” Morales asked.
“I told him to leave.”
“Call him.”
My hands shook as I dialed.
No answer.
I called again.
Voicemail.
A third time.
Nothing.
Morales immediately sent officers to our apartment.
They found Wyatt’s car in the parking garage.
His phone lay beneath it, crushed.
There was blood on the driver’s door.
I forgot every reason I had been angry with him.
All I could think was that the last thing I had done was remove my ring and send him away.
“They took him because of me.”
Morales shook her head.
“They took him because he discovered their financial network.”
“What do they want?”
“Control. Silence. Leverage.”
Naomi Price arrived carrying copies of Wyatt’s investigation files.
Before he disappeared, Wyatt had sent them to her office.
“He identified three people who repeatedly appear in Gregory’s transactions,” she said. “A notary named Franklin Reed, a former police officer named Thomas Vane, and an attorney named Charles Mercer.”
Detective Morales recognized the final name.
“Mercer represented Gregory during Elias’s original disappearance.”
“He also established the trust that received Rebecca Hale’s shares.”
“Where is he now?”
“He owns a private estate near Lake Erie.”
Morales made calls while Naomi continued.
“Wyatt also found payments to a medical transport company called North Star Patient Services.”
“That sounds like the van.”
“The company officially closed eight years ago. Its former owner was Thomas Vane.”
The ex-police officer.
The man who could have known how to avoid cameras, move a prisoner, and manipulate an investigation.
Morales looked at me.
“Vane was one of the responding patrol officers when Elias disappeared.”
The conspiracy had begun from the first night.
Gregory had not hidden his brother alone.
He had paid a police officer to help erase him.
We learned that Vane owned several rural properties. Officers searched two and found nothing.
At the third, they discovered fresh blood, restraints, and Wyatt’s torn jacket.
But no bodies.
On the wall, someone had written a phone number.
I called under police supervision.
Charles Mercer answered.
His voice was smooth and elderly.
“Sadie. I was wondering when you would find your way into the family business.”
“Where are they?”
“Alive.”
“Let me speak to Wyatt.”
“You are in no position to give instructions.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Sign a declaration confirming Melanie as Rebecca Hale’s lawful heir.”
“No.”
“Then Mr. Campbell will suffer the consequences of his curiosity.”
“And Elias?”
A pause.
“Elias was always sentimental. It made him weak.”
“You helped Gregory imprison him.”
“I helped preserve valuable assets from an unstable man.”
“He wasn’t unstable.”
“After enough years in confinement, everyone becomes unstable.”
My stomach turned.
“You’re going to prison.”
Mercer laughed softly.
“I have spent three decades keeping men like Gregory out of prison.”
“Gregory is already there.”
“And he remains useful.”
Detective Morales motioned for me to keep him talking while technicians traced the call.
“Why did Gregory keep me alive?”
“Because a deceased beneficiary would trigger a transfer review. A living, dependent child was easier to control.”
“And when I became an adult?”
“You were expected to cooperate.”
“I didn’t.”
“No. You inherited Rebecca’s stubbornness.”
“Did you know her?”
“I knew everyone who mattered.”
“What happened to her?”
Silence.
Hospital records said Rebecca died from complications after childbirth.
But suddenly, I heard uncertainty in Mercer’s breathing.
“She didn’t die naturally, did she?”
“You should sign the declaration.”
“What did Gregory do to my mother?”
The line went dead.
The trace lasted long enough.
The call originated near Sandusky.
Close to Lake Erie.
Close to Mercer’s estate.
A tactical operation was prepared, but Morales warned that the property was large and heavily secured.
“We need probable cause strong enough to enter every structure.”
“He admitted holding them.”
“He never stated where.”
“He called from the area.”
“That supports surveillance, not necessarily immediate entry.”
I felt rage rising.
“Then use me.”
“No.”
“He wants my signature.”
“No.”
“I can arrange a meeting.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Detective, every hour we wait, they drug Elias and hurt Wyatt.”
Morales looked at my bandaged face.
“You were nearly killed three days ago.”
“And I’m still here.”
Naomi intervened.
“A controlled meeting could establish kidnapping and extortion.”
Morales stared at her.
“You’re an attorney, not a tactical commander.”
“I’m aware. I’m also telling you Mercer will not stop. If Sadie refuses to engage, he may eliminate the witnesses.”
The detective hated the plan.
But by afternoon, she approved a version of it.
I called Mercer and agreed to sign.
He gave me an address for a closed lakeside resort north of Sandusky.
I was to arrive alone at sunset.
Instead, I arrived wearing a wire beneath my coat, with police teams concealed nearby.
The resort consisted of several abandoned cabins surrounding a frozen swimming pool.
Mercer stood inside the old dining hall.
He wore a tailored gray suit and leaned on a silver cane.
“You look like Rebecca,” he said.
“You don’t have the right to say her name.”
He placed documents on a table.
“Sign.”
“Show me Wyatt and Elias.”
Mercer nodded toward a security monitor.
A camera feed appeared.
Wyatt was tied to a chair in a basement room. Blood covered one side of his face.
Elias lay unconscious on a cot beside him.
“They’re alive,” Mercer said. “That should be enough.”
“Where are they?”
“Sign first.”
I picked up the pen.
“Tell me what happened to Rebecca.”
His expression cooled.
“That information has no relevance.”
“It does to me.”
“Your mother became inconvenient.”
The wire beneath my coat captured every word.
“Inconvenient how?”
“She threatened to expose Gregory’s attempt to steal Elias’s land. She planned to leave Ohio with you.”
“What did Gregory do?”
Mercer tapped his cane impatiently.
“Rebecca suffered a fatal reaction to medication.”
“Medication you gave her?”
“A nurse administered it.”
“On whose orders?”
“Gregory’s.”
The confession echoed in the empty hall.
Mercer realized too late that he had said too much.
His eyes dropped toward my coat.
Then he lunged forward and ripped the wire free.
“Police!” Morales shouted from outside.
The windows shattered as officers entered.
Mercer struck me with his cane and ran through a side door.
I fell against the table.
Gunshots sounded outside.
By the time Wyatt’s security team reached me, Mercer had escaped across the frozen lake on a waiting snowmobile.
But he left behind the monitor.
The camera feed was still active.
Naomi studied the image.
“There’s a logo on the wall behind Wyatt.”
A faded green symbol showed a lighthouse inside a circle.
Morales recognized it.
“North Star Patient Services.”
The company’s old headquarters stood twenty miles east.
Police raced there.
Inside the abandoned medical facility, they found Elias.
He was alive.
Wyatt’s chair stood beside him.
Empty.
The ropes had been cut.
A trail of blood led through a rear door toward the shoreline.
May you like
Near the water, officers found Wyatt’s shoes.
And a section of broken ice.
