Chapter 19 - WHAT WE CHOSE TO REBUILD
The next six months changed our lives again.
But this time, nobody controlled the changes except us.
Rhea Dalton was charged with kidnapping, child abuse, conspiracy, attempted murder, fraud and dozens of related offenses.
Warren Bell faced many of the same charges.
Simon accepted a plea agreement.
He provided investigators with financial records and testimony against Bell.
His cooperation reduced his sentence.
It did not erase what he had done.
I visited him once before sentencing.
He sat behind thick glass.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me."
"Good."
He gave a tired smile.
"I deserve that."
I looked at my brother.
Part of me still remembered the boy who taught me to ride a bicycle.
The teenager who broke his wrist defending me in a school fight.
The best man at my wedding.
People were complicated that way.
Someone could love you and still destroy you through cowardice.
"Take responsibility."
"I am."
"For all of it."
He nodded.
I never promised another visit.
Mercer Architectural Group survived.
Barely.
I released decades of internal records to investigators.
Several contracts were suspended.
Two board members resigned.
We lost clients.
Our stock collapsed.
Then something unexpected happened.
Employees stayed.
Not all.
Enough.
We rebuilt the company around independent oversight.
The Mercer name stopped being something I protected.
It became something I had to earn again.
Mara spent months recovering physically.
Emotional recovery was slower.
There were nights when she woke terrified.
Doors frightened her.
Dark rooms frightened her.
Medication bottles frightened her.
For weeks, she could not sleep unless the hallway light remained on.
Perrin had his own nightmares.
Sometimes he crawled into my bed.
Sometimes into Mara's.
Sometimes all three of us ended up sitting in the kitchen at three in the morning eating cereal because nobody could sleep.
We became a family again in strange little pieces.
Not a marriage.
Not immediately.
Too much had happened.
I had loved another woman while Mara was alive.
I knew I had been manipulated.
That fact did not make the situation simple.
One evening, Mara and I sat on the back steps watching Perrin chase fireflies.
"I'm not angry that you believed I died."
She said it without looking at me.
"I am."
"At yourself?"
"Yes."
"You shouldn't be."
"I proposed to her."
Mara looked at me.
"You were grieving."
"I let her raise our son."
"You didn't know."
"I should have."
"Caleb."
Her voice became firm.
"Rhea already took two years from us."
"Don't give her the rest because you need someone to blame."
I looked toward Perrin.
He was laughing.
I had not heard that laugh in a long time.
"Do you think we can fix this?"
Mara considered the question.
"I don't want to fix what we had."
That hurt until she continued.
"I want to build something new."
I reached for her hand.
She let me take it.
That was enough.
The hidden wall inside the house was removed.
Perrin asked us not to seal it again.
So we didn't.
Instead, we opened the old corridor.
We added lights.
Windows where possible.
The room where Perrin had been imprisoned became a reading room.
His idea.
"No doors that lock."
He said.
"No doors that lock."
I promised.
Scout received a new collar.
Mara repaired the torn stitching herself.
For the first time in years, our home began feeling like a home again.
Then Detective Ortiz called.
Her voice was serious.
"We found something on Bell's drive."
I looked at Mara.
"What?"
"Evidence connected to Grant."
My chest tightened.
"Enough to arrest him?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"A schedule."
"For what?"
Ortiz hesitated.
"Meetings."
"With who?"
"People from Mercer."
I assumed she meant my father.
I was wrong.
"The most recent meeting is next month."
My skin went cold.
"Arthur has been dead six years."
"I know."
"Simon is in prison."
"I know."
"Then who from Mercer?"
Ortiz became silent.
May you like
When she answered, her voice was almost apologetic.
"You."
