Chapter 6 - My Father Finally Told Me Everything
I found my father trying to leave the hospital.
He had a bullet wound less than forty-eight hours old and was halfway into his pants when I entered the room.
“Sit down.”
He looked at my face.
“What happened?”
I showed him the photograph.
He stopped moving.
For the first time since returning from the dead, Robert Mercer looked afraid.
“Samuel.”
“He’s alive.”
Dad sat on the edge of the bed.
“So Marcus told the truth.”
“Apparently that happens occasionally.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does Samuel want?”
“You.”
Dad nodded as though he had expected it.
I wanted to hit him again.
Instead, I closed the door.
“You’re going to tell me everything.”
“I’ve told you—”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You’ve told me pieces when pieces became convenient.”
He looked away.
“You lied about Samuel being dead. You let me marry Rebecca. You let Mom believe you were dead for eleven years. You have warehouses full of evidence, hidden transmitters, fake death certificates, and apparently an entire war I inherited without being informed.”
“Ryder—”
“Everything.”
He studied me.
Then slowly nodded.
“Okay.”
The story began thirty-three years earlier.
My father and Samuel Holloway had been friends.
Not casual business partners.
Friends.
They started buying undervalued mineral interests together.
Samuel understood landowners.
Dad understood engineering.
For years, they made money legally.
Then oil prices fell.
Samuel took risks.
Fake signatures.
Backdated leases.
Shell companies.
Dad discovered one forgery and threatened to dissolve the partnership.
Samuel convinced him it was a one-time act.
It wasn’t.
By the time Dad learned the truth, Holloway had built an entire fraud network.
Judges.
Notaries.
Bank employees.
County clerks.
Doctors.
And synthetic identities.
“The children Allison mentioned,” I said.
Dad nodded.
“Samuel bought stolen identities from a hospital records employee.”
“Real children?”
“Some died at birth. Some were abandoned. Some records were fabricated entirely.”
“That’s monstrous.”
“It was profitable.”
“And Rebecca?”
Dad went quiet.
“Samuel found her when she was eleven.”
“Found her where?”
“Foster system.”
“He adopted her?”
“Unofficially.”
“Why?”
“She had an extraordinary memory.”
I frowned.
“She could hear a story once and repeat every detail. Names. Dates. Addresses.”
“So Samuel trained her.”
“Yes.”
“To steal identities.”
“Yes.”
Dad stared out the window.
“She became his best weapon.”
“And Marcus?”
“His biological son. Reckless. Violent. But loyal.”
“David?”
“David Kessler’s father laundered money for Samuel. David grew up around them.”
“And Allison Bennett?”
“She worked for me.”
Dad looked tired.
“When she discovered the synthetic identity network, she panicked. Said she wanted to go to federal authorities immediately.”
“You told her not to.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew Samuel had people everywhere.”
“She disappeared.”
“Marcus attacked her.”
“But she survived.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Rebecca stole her identity.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Allison had clean credit, no close relatives, and access credentials that allowed Rebecca to continue monitoring my investigations.”
“And then she met me.”
Dad looked at his hands.
“That was not part of Samuel’s plan.”
I remembered what Allison had told me.
Rebecca knew me as a child.
“Did I meet her at Holloway Ranch?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Twelve.”
“And her?”
“Eleven.”
Images came back slowly.
A girl near a horse fence.
Bare feet.
A cheap red shirt.
She had been angry because another boy pushed her into mud.
I had given her my baseball cap.
I remembered her asking my name.
Ryder.
“I forgot her.”
“She didn’t forget you.”
“How do you know?”
“Years later, Samuel told me she kept the cap.”
That landed harder than it should have.
For seven years, I had wondered whether anything in my marriage was real.
Maybe the cruelest answer was that some of it had been.
“She targeted me because of you?”
“At first.”
“And then?”
Dad looked at me.
“I think she loved you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“She fractured my mother’s wrist.”
“Love doesn’t make people good.”
“No. Apparently not.”
“Rebecca spent her entire childhood learning that affection, identity, and loyalty were tools. She may not know the difference between loving someone and owning them.”
“That isn’t my problem anymore.”
“No.”
“What happened with your plane?”
Dad took a breath.
“When Samuel learned I had copied his records, he arranged the crash.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“So you didn’t board.”
“I switched plans.”
“With Thomas Holloway?”
“Samuel’s younger brother. Thomas wanted out.”
“Was he the body identified as you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Samuel manipulated the dental records.”
“Why?”
“He believed I might be alive, but publicly confirming my death made it harder for me to surface without raising questions.”
“And you let us bury Thomas as you.”
“Yes.”
My anger returned.
“You could have contacted Mom.”
“I did.”
Her story.
Three days before.
Then nothing.
“After the crash, Samuel threatened you.”
“What did he say?”
Dad’s voice dropped.
“He sent me a photograph of you leaving college.”
I stopped breathing.
“He wrote, ‘Stay dead.’”
My anger didn’t disappear.
But it shifted.
“You believed him.”
“Yes.”
“So you hid.”
“Yes.”
“For eleven years.”
“I watched.”
“That’s not being a father.”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
He looked at me.
“It was cowardice dressed as sacrifice.”
That silenced me.
Finally, something honest.
Dad continued.
“I told myself every year that staying away protected you. Then Rebecca entered your life.”
“You should have warned me.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was close to exposing Samuel. I thought if Rebecca believed you knew nothing, you were safer.”
“You were wrong.”
“Yes.”
“You were wrong about Mom.”
“Yes.”
“You were wrong about everything.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
I sat.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then I placed Samuel’s photograph on the bed.
“He wants you.”
“He wants the master ledger.”
“What master ledger?”
Dad almost smiled.
“Of course.”
I leaned back.
“There’s another secret.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
“The list in B-214 is incomplete.”
“Why?”
“Because I separated the financial records from the names.”
“Where is the full record?”
Dad looked at me.
“You built it.”
“What?”
“Remember your first encrypted industrial monitoring prototype?”
I frowned.
I had been twenty-five.
A crude storage system that divided information across multiple drives.
Dad had helped fund it.
“You used my system.”
“I used your encryption architecture.”
“To hide the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Three locations.”
“Keys?”
“One with me. One with Eleanor. One with…”
He hesitated.
“Who?”
“You.”
I stared.
“No.”
“The watch I gave you when you graduated.”
I looked at my wrist.
I still wore it.
An old stainless-steel mechanical watch.
Dad had told me it belonged to my grandfather.
“It contains a key?”
“Inside the case.”
I almost laughed.
“I’ve worn this through airport security for twenty years.”
“It’s a thin ceramic data wafer. No metal signature.”
I removed the watch.
“Samuel knows?”
“He knows three keys exist. He doesn’t know you have one.”
“And Mom?”
“Her key is inside the blue sewing box.”
“The box Rebecca wanted.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly everything aligned.
Rebecca wasn’t only after the cabinet code.
She had been searching for a physical encryption key.
“And yours?”
Dad reached toward his hospital bracelet.
“Not here.”
“Where?”
He smiled faintly.
“Some secrets remain useful.”
My phone rang.
Detective Ruiz.
“We got a location.”
“Samuel?”
“The photograph contained metadata.”
“Rebecca’s phone?”
“Probably deliberate.”
I understood.
Rebecca had left us a trail.
“Where?”
“Old natural gas compression station near Palo Pinto.”
Dad heard.
His face changed.
“I know it.”
“How?”
“It belonged to Holloway Land Services.”
Ruiz continued.
“We’re staging a team.”
“No local officers.”
“I agree.”
“You found the leak?”
“No.”
“Then no local officers.”
She paused.
“Federal agents are coming in.”
“How long?”
“Already contacted.”
I looked at Dad.
“Samuel wants him.”
Ruiz knew what I was thinking.
“No.”
“We can use Dad to draw him out.”
“No.”
Dad said, “Yes.”
Ruiz cursed through the phone.
I put her on speaker.
“Robert, you just got shot.”
“I’ve been shot before.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“I know Samuel.”
“And he knows you.”
“Exactly.”
The plan was reckless.
Which meant it had a chance.
We drove west before sunset.
Federal agents followed at a distance.
Dad wore a vest.
So did I.
Ruiz hated every second.
The compression station sat abandoned among scrubland and rusted pipe.
Dad and I approached in an SUV.
No visible movement.
Then loudspeakers crackled.
Samuel’s voice.
“Robert.”
Dad looked toward an old control building.
“Samuel.”
“Eleven years.”
“Not long enough.”
Samuel laughed.
“Bring the key.”
Dad raised a small envelope.
“Show me Eleanor.”
A metal door opened.
Mom appeared.
Hands tied.
Rebecca stood beside her with bruises across her face.
A man held a gun behind them.
Alive.
Both alive.
I took a step.
Mom shouted, “Ryder, no!”
The gunman struck her.
My vision narrowed.
Dad grabbed my arm.
“Wait.”
Samuel appeared on an elevated platform.
He looked older than Dad.
But strong.
Elegant.
A silver H ring gleamed on his hand.
The ring Allison Bennett remembered.
“Robert,” he said. “You always did bring family into business.”
Dad stared up.
“You put them there.”
Samuel smiled.
“Semantics.”
“Let them go.”
“The ledger.”
“First Eleanor.”
“First the key.”
Dad raised the envelope.
Samuel looked at me.
“And the boy.”
“I’m forty-two.”
“To me, you’re still the child running around my ranch.”
I felt Rebecca watching me.
Samuel continued.
“Give me Robert’s key and the watch.”
My stomach dropped.
He knew.
Dad’s face remained expressionless.
“You didn’t know about the watch.”
“I didn’t.”
Samuel smiled.
“But Rebecca did.”
I looked at her.
She shook her head desperately.
“No.”
Samuel laughed.
“She told me years ago Robert gave you that watch.”
“That doesn’t mean she knew what was inside.”
“She knew enough.”
Rebecca shouted, “Ryder, don’t listen to him!”
Samuel turned and slapped her.
Hard.
“Speak when invited.”
Something in me snapped.
I stepped forward.
Samuel pointed a pistol toward Mom.
I stopped.
“Good.”
Then he looked at Dad.
“Key.”
Dad tossed the envelope onto the ground.
One of Samuel’s men retrieved it.
Opened it.
Inside was a plastic wafer.
Samuel smiled.
“One.”
His eyes moved to my watch.
“Two.”
I removed it.
“Let Mom go.”
“Three keys open the ledger.”
“You only asked for two.”
Samuel’s smile widened.
“I already have Eleanor’s.”
My heart stopped.
The blue sewing box.
Rebecca.
She had the third key.
Samuel had all he needed except mine.
I held up the watch.
“Release both women.”
“Rebecca too?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes found mine.
Shock.
Maybe she had expected me to leave her.
Samuel chuckled.
“Still your wife?”
“No.”
“Then why save her?”
“Because I’m not you.”
His smile disappeared.
I threw the watch.
He caught it.
“Now.”
Samuel nodded to the gunman.
The man cut Mom’s hands loose.
She ran toward us.
Rebecca took one step.
The gunman grabbed her hair.
“Both!” I shouted.
Samuel laughed.
“I said Eleanor.”
“You promised—”
“I promised nothing.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Take your mother and go!”
Gunfire exploded from the ridge.
Federal agents.
Everything happened at once.
Samuel’s men fired back.
Dad pulled Mom behind a concrete barrier.
I ran toward Rebecca.
The gunman dragged her into the control building.
“Ryder!” Dad shouted.
I ignored him.
I reached the doorway as Rebecca slammed her head backward into the gunman’s nose.
He loosened his grip.
I hit him.
We fell against an electrical cabinet.
Rebecca grabbed his pistol.
For one second, she aimed it at him.
Then at me.
Her hands shook.
I froze.
Seven years of marriage stood between us.
Every breakfast.
Every lie.
Every kiss.
Every bruise on Mom’s body.
“Rebecca.”
Tears ran down her face.
“I’m sorry.”
Then she turned the gun away from me and fired at the lock on a steel door.
“Move!”
We ran through.
Behind us, Samuel shouted.
A hidden tunnel descended beneath the station.
Rebecca knew the way.
“Where does this go?”
“Old pipeline access.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because Samuel has the keys.”
“So?”
“If he opens the ledger, he’ll know where Robert stored every backup.”
“And?”
“He’ll destroy them.”
I grabbed her arm.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She looked at me.
“The ledger doesn’t only prove what Samuel did.”
“What else?”
“It proves what your father did.”
My chest tightened.
“Meaning?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Robert Mercer didn’t spend eleven years hiding from Samuel.”
She looked back toward the gunfire.
May you like
“He spent eleven years working with him.”
And before I could respond, an explosion ripped through the tunnel behind us.
