Chapter 3 - Someone Already KnewGrant said nothing.
Across the room, Rachel saw his expression change.
Nathan spoke again.
“Grant?”
“How do you know they're here?”
A pause.
Small.
Almost imperceptible.
But Grant heard it.
“Security called me.”
“No, they didn't.”
“What?”
“I personally told security not to contact anyone.”
Nathan recovered quickly.
“You're CEO of a major company. You think your security team doesn't have emergency protocols?”
Grant looked toward Sophie and Sadie.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Stay there.”
“Grant, listen to me—”
Grant ended the call.
Rachel approached.
“Problem?”
“Nathan knows.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“How?”
“That's what I'd like to know.”
Rachel read Emily's letter.
Grant had known Nathan Cole for seventeen years. They had built Mercer Urban Design together from two desks in a rented office above a laundromat.
Nathan had stood beside Grant at both of his parents' funerals.
He knew every account.
Every building.
Every employee.
Every weakness.
If Grant had a brother, Nathan was the closest thing to one.
And now Grant remembered the final line.
Someone inside your company knows they exist.
The police arrived shortly after four.
Rachel handled most of the conversation.
The twins had indeed been reported missing from a foster placement forty-eight hours earlier.
Their foster guardian was Martin Bell.
Grant requested that the girls not be returned until allegations concerning the placement could be investigated.
A social worker arrived at dawn.
Her name was Denise Holloway.
She was in her fifties, exhausted but patient, and unlike everyone else who entered the penthouse that morning, she spoke to Sophie and Sadie before speaking about them.
That mattered to Grant.
Denise confirmed Emily Carter was their mother.
Grant's name was absent from both birth certificates.
The father was listed as unknown.
Then came the worse news.
Emily had been hospitalized eleven days earlier after being found unconscious in her apartment building's underground garage.
“Car accident?” Grant asked.
Denise hesitated.
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“She fell down a concrete stairwell.”
Grant felt cold.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
The word almost dropped him.
“Where?”
“I can't disclose medical information until—”
“I'm their father.”
“We don't know that legally.”
Grant stared at her.
Denise remained calm.
“I believe you understand the difference.”
Rachel touched Grant's arm.
“We'll establish paternity.”
Denise nodded.
Emergency DNA testing could be arranged.
Until then, the twins technically remained wards under state supervision.
Grant expected them to be taken away.
Instead Denise surprised him.
Given the allegations, the unusual circumstances, Rachel's presence, Grant's clean background, and the children's extreme distress at returning to the previous placement, Denise would request temporary emergency kinship placement pending DNA confirmation.
Nothing was guaranteed.
But the girls could remain for several hours while the process began.
Sophie had one question.
“Can we see Mommy?”
Denise's expression changed.
“Not yet, sweetheart.”
“Why?”
“She's sleeping because she's very sick.”
Sadie's lower lip trembled.
“Will she wake up?”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
Grant crouched.
He had never comforted a child in his life.
He simply held out his hand.
Sadie stared at it.
Then placed her tiny fingers inside his palm.
Grant's throat tightened.
“I don't know what will happen,” he said. “But I'm going to find out.”
After Denise left, Grant began doing what he understood best.
Solving problems.
He ordered children's clothes, toothbrushes, shoes, pajamas, groceries, blankets, and two beds.
Rachel stopped him after the fourth online order.
“They don't need an entire department store.”
“I don't know what children need.”
“Clearly.”
Sophie almost smiled.
It was the first time Grant saw it.
Then he remembered the key.
Emily's envelope.
The brass key had a number engraved on it.
Rachel photographed it.
“Storage unit?”
“Safe-deposit box?”
Grant looked again.
A logo was faintly stamped onto the metal.
Union Station.
By eight, Rachel had identified it as a locker key.
Grant wanted to leave immediately.
Rachel refused.
“You have two traumatized six-year-olds who just learned their mother is alive but unconscious. You're not disappearing.”
So Rachel went.
Grant stayed.
For the next two hours, a man who could negotiate a hundred-million-dollar development discovered he could not successfully braid a six-year-old's hair.
Sadie laughed at him.
Actually laughed.
“It's crooked.”
“I build skyscrapers.”
“Hair isn't a skyscraper.”
“I'm noticing.”
Sophie watched from the doorway.
More cautious.
More protective.
Grant understood instinctively that Sadie wanted desperately to trust him.
Sophie wanted desperately not to.
Both frightened him.
At 10:17, Rachel returned carrying a metal document box.
The key had opened locker 317.
Inside were medical records, photographs, a flash drive, and several sealed envelopes.
One photograph showed Emily visibly pregnant.
Grant sat down.
Another showed newborn twins.
Another showed them at one.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
A life.
His life.
Missing from every frame.
Then Rachel opened the medical folder.
Her expression hardened.
“Grant.”
“What?”
“The girls were born at Northwestern.”
“So?”
“You donated two million dollars to their neonatal expansion six years ago.”
He remembered.
A strange coincidence.
Then Rachel handed him a document.
It was a certified letter addressed to Grant Mercer at Mercer Urban Design.
Dated seven months before the twins were born.
Emily had written to him.
She had told him she was pregnant.
Attached was a courier receipt.
Delivered.
Signed for.
Grant stared at the signature.
It wasn't his.
Rachel whispered, “Someone intercepted it.”
There were three more letters.
All delivered to Mercer Urban Design.
All signed by the same person.
Grant recognized the handwriting.
Nathan Cole.
His phone rang.
Nathan again.
This time Grant answered immediately.
“Did Emily write to me?”
Silence.
“Nathan.”
“Grant, we need to discuss this privately.”
“Did you intercept letters from her?”
“It's complicated.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
Nathan exhaled.
“Yes.”
Grant's entire world went still.
“You knew I had children.”
“Grant—”
“For six years?”
“It wasn't supposed to happen like this.”
Grant's voice became frighteningly quiet.
“What was supposed to happen?”
Nathan said nothing.
Grant looked at his daughters.
Then Nathan finally spoke.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From Emily.”
Grant's grip tightened around the phone.
Nathan continued.
“But if the girls found you, then Emily must have discovered the financial records.”
“What financial records?”
Another silence.
May you like
Then Nathan said something Grant would remember for the rest of his life.
“The ones proving Mercer Urban Design never belonged entirely to you.”
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