Chapter 4: The Father Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
I read my father's name six times.
Then I read it again.
*Thomas Carter.*
The man who had supposedly died in a car accident twelve years earlier.
The man whose funeral I attended.
The man whose ashes my mother kept in a small wooden urn above her fireplace.
My father was dead.
I had seen his coffin.
I had watched them lower it into the ground.
So why was his signature sitting beside my wife's on a document dated six days before her death?
"Marcus?""
Officer Reynolds was watching me.
I handed him my phone.
He studied the photograph.
"Who is Thomas Carter?""
"My father.""
"Is he alive?""
"No.""
"How certain are you?""
I stared at him.
"I buried him.""
Officer Reynolds didn't argue.
Instead, he called for another officer to remain at the house while he contacted the records department.
I called Robert.
He answered immediately.
"Marcus, thank God. Did you see the document?""
"Yes. Tell me why my father's signature is there.""
"I don't know. But I checked the date. The amendment was witnessed by someone named Thomas Carter.""
"That's impossible.""
"There's more. The witness provided an identification number.""
"Whose?""
"Your father's.""
I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter.
"Robert, my father died in 2014.""
"I know.""
"Then somebody is using his identity.""
"That's what I initially thought. But I checked the number against the insurance company's archived records.""
"And?""
"It's valid.""
I closed my eyes.
"Send me the address of the office. I'm coming.""
"Marcus, wait. There's another reason I need you to come.""
"What?""
"Your wife left something in my safe.""
"What kind of something?""
"A letter addressed to you. She instructed me to give it to you only if her father-in-law's name appeared on any document connected to her death.""
I went completely still.
"My father-in-law?""
"That's how she described him.""
I looked toward Lily.
She was sitting on the floor, arranging the colored pencils into neat rows.
"Robert, why would Nia know something about my father?""
"I think she discovered something about the accident.""
My father's accident.
For twelve years, I had believed a drunk driver had crossed the center line and killed him instantly.
My mother had identified his belongings.
The police had closed the investigation.
I had never questioned it.
Not once.
Until now.
"Send me the address," I said.
Robert's office occupied the seventeenth floor of a glass building downtown.
When I arrived, he was waiting beside his conference room.
He looked older than I remembered.
His tie was crooked, and a stack of documents covered the table.
"Sit down, Marcus.""
I didn't sit.
"Show me the letter.""
He opened a locked drawer and removed a cream envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Nia's handwriting.
My fingers trembled as I opened it.
My love,
There are things about your family that I wish I could have told you earlier.
I found them by accident while reviewing our estate documents.
Your father's death certificate contains information that doesn't match the original hospital record.
The hospital listed a different date of death.
And the body was never positively identified through dental records.
I stopped reading.
"What?""
Robert lowered his eyes.
"Keep going.""
I continued.
I asked questions because I thought it was an administrative mistake. Then someone called me and told me to stop.
The next morning, I found an envelope inside my car.
It contained a photograph of your father taken three months ago.
My hand dropped.
Three months ago?
I looked at Robert.
"Did she have this photograph?""
He nodded and opened another folder.
Inside was a printed image.
An older man stood outside a grocery store.
Gray hair.
A familiar posture.
A slight bend in his left shoulder.
I knew that face.
I had spent my childhood watching it across the breakfast table.
It was my father.
Alive.
My legs weakened.
"Where was this taken?""
"According to the metadata, outside a grocery store in Ohio.""
I stared at the photograph.
"Why didn't Nia tell me?""
Robert folded his hands.
"She was afraid.""
"Of my father?""
"I don't know.""
I returned to the letter.
Marcus, I believe your father knows what happened to Lily before we brought her home.
I stopped.
Lily.
My daughter.
The little girl who was currently drawing pictures in my living room.
I had never known anything unusual about her birth.
Nia had delivered her at St. Mary's nine years earlier. I remembered holding her for the first time, crying because she had my eyes.
But suddenly, another memory surfaced.
The night Lily was born, my mother had arrived at the hospital carrying a pink blanket.
She had insisted on holding the baby before anyone else.
Nia had looked uncomfortable.
At the time, I thought it was exhaustion.
Now I wondered.
"Robert," I said, "what happened when Lily was born?""
He hesitated.
"I was hoping you could tell me.""
"I don't know.""
"Then perhaps Nia's letter can help.""
I continued reading.
Your father came to the hospital that night. You were told he was out of town.
He wasn't.
He argued with your mother outside my room.
I heard him say that the baby belonged to someone else.
My mouth went dry.
I didn't understand what he meant. When I asked your mother, she told me I was confused from the medication.
Three days later, I was given papers to sign.
I refused.
The letter ended with one final sentence.
If anything happens to me, protect our daughter from the people who were supposed to love her first.
I slowly lowered the page.
Robert remained silent.
Then he slid another document toward me.
It was a copy of Lily's original birth registration.
I looked at the father's name.
Marcus Carter.
Then I looked at the second page.
A handwritten correction had been made to the hospital's original record.
The correction was dated nine years earlier.
It had been authorized by someone named Thomas Carter.
I looked up.
"Why would my father have access to my daughter's birth certificate?""
Robert didn't answer.
Instead, he turned his computer toward me.
A security camera image showed a man entering the building that morning.
The footage was timestamped twenty minutes earlier.
The man wore a dark coat and carried a leather briefcase.
His face was unmistakable.
My father.
Thomas Carter.
Robert whispered, "Marcus, he asked to see you.""
I stared at the screen.
"Where is he now?""
Robert pointed toward the elevator.
"He said he'd wait downstairs.""
My phone began vibrating.
An unknown number.
I answered.
A familiar voice spoke.
"Son.""
My entire body went cold.
"Dad?""
There was a pause.
Then the man said:
"You need to stop digging into Lily's birth before you discover why your wife was never supposed to bring her home.""
May you like
The call disconnected.
And somewhere downstairs, the elevator doors opened.
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