Chapter 3: The Name That Should Not Exist
Dominic did not answer the voice on the phone.
He ended the call.
The SUV was quiet for three full seconds.
Then Emma reached up and pressed her small palm flat against Hannah's cheek, the way a child does when they want someone to look at them.
Hannah looked.
Emma stared back with dark, serious eyes.
"Mama," she said.
Not a question.
A statement.
Hannah gently moved the child's hand down.
"I'm not your mama, sweetheart."
Emma's face did not change.
She kept her eyes on Hannah the entire way.
Dominic was watching the phone in his hand.
"Who was that?" Hannah asked.
"Someone who should not know you exist."
"That's not an answer."
"No." He pocketed the phone.
"It isn't."
The SUV turned off the main road and passed through a gate that opened before the driver touched a button.
The building beyond it was not what Hannah expected.
No iron fences.
No guards with visible weapons.
Just a wide townhouse on a quiet street, the kind of building that looked like old money and revealed nothing.
Inside, the nannies took the girls upstairs without being asked.
Lily went without protest.
Grace held Hannah's sleeve for a moment before letting go.
Emma looked back from the staircase until she disappeared around the corner.
Dominic led Hannah into a room off the main hall.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
A desk that had actually been used.
He opened a drawer and set a manila folder on the desk between them.
"Sit down," he said.
"I'd rather stand."
He didn't argue.
He opened the folder.
Inside were documents.
Medical records.
A birth certificate.
A photograph that was not the same one he had shown her in the car — this one was older, slightly faded, the kind that came from a physical album rather than a phone.
Hannah looked at it.
The woman was younger in this one.
Maybe nineteen or twenty.
She was standing in front of a building Hannah didn't recognize, laughing at something outside the frame.
She had Hannah's laugh lines.
Hannah's way of holding her shoulders.
"Her name was Cara," Dominic said.
"Cara Voss."
Hannah said nothing.
"She came to New York at twenty-two.
We met through a mutual contact.
We were married eleven months later." He paused.
"She never spoke about her family.
I assumed there wasn't much to speak about."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because her legal name before she came to New York was not Cara Voss."
Hannah looked up.
Dominic slid one of the documents across the desk.
It was a name-change filing.
Official.
Stamped.
The original name had been partially redacted, but the last name was still visible.
Mercer.
Hannah's hand went flat on the desk.
"That's my name."
"Yes."
"That doesn't mean—"
"Your father's name was Robert Mercer.
He d*ed fourteen months ago.
Pancreatic cancer." Dominic's voice stayed level.
"He had one child listed on his hospital intake form.
One daughter.
Hannah."
"That's right."
"His emergency contact form listed a second name.
A daughter.
Crossed out.
The crossing-out was done by hand, not by the hospital."
The room felt smaller.
"What was the name?" Hannah asked.
Dominic turned the document so she could read it herself.
The crossed-out name was Caroline.
Hannah's mouth went dry.
"My father never mentioned—"
"I know."
"He wouldn't hide something like that."
Dominic looked at her steadily.
"He hid it for at least twenty-six years."
Hannah stepped back from the desk.
Her heel caught the edge of the rug and she steadied herself against the bookshelf.
"This is a mistake," she said.
"These documents could be anything.
You could have had them made."
"I could have," Dominic agreed.
"I didn't."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because my daughters spoke their first words to you." His voice didn't rise.
"And because the man who just called me has been looking for you for two years.
Not for me.
For you.
And he does not know your name yet — but he knows your face."
Hannah stared at him.
"How does he know my face?"
May you like
Dominic closed the folder.
"That," he said, "is what I need to find out before he does."
