Michael Reyes.
The name had been little more than a mystery until now. Daniel’s note—“M.R. / Alive”—had changed everything. For years, they had been told Daniel had died carrying his secrets with him. Yet the note suggested that Daniel had known someone who survived, someone connected to the evidence they were desperately trying to understand.
Jason finally opened his door.
“Whatever we find in there,” Eleanor said quietly, “we don't assume anything.”
Jason looked at her.
“You're right.”
“We've already made that mistake once,” she continued. “We thought we understood Emily. We thought we understood Daniel. We thought we understood what Richard Bell was capable of. Every time, there was something underneath.”
Thomas folded the letter and placed it inside his jacket. “Then we look first. We decide later.”
The building’s front door was unlocked. Inside, the hallway smelled faintly of dust, old paper, and cooking oil. A handwritten directory listed only three tenants. Michael Reyes was not among them.
Jason climbed the stairs first.
At the second floor, apartment 4B stood at the end of the corridor. There was no name on the door. Jason knocked once.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
Then Eleanor noticed the thin strip of light beneath the door.
Someone was inside.
Jason knocked harder. “Michael Reyes?”
Silence.
Thomas stepped closer. “We know about Daniel.”
The effect was immediate.
Something moved inside the apartment.
A chair scraped across the floor.
Then a man's voice came through the door.
“Who sent you?”
Jason answered, “No one.”
“That's not an answer.”
“My name is Jason Parker. Daniel was my father.”
The lock turned.
The door opened only a few inches.
The man standing behind it was older than Jason had expected, perhaps in his late forties. His dark hair was streaked with gray, and a thin scar ran from beneath his left ear toward his jaw. His eyes moved from Jason to Eleanor, then to Thomas.
When he saw Thomas, his expression changed.
“You brought him.”
Thomas frowned. “You know me?”
Michael opened the door wider.
“I knew your father.”
The apartment was nearly empty. A table stood beneath the window with stacks of documents arranged in careful piles. There was a single bed in the adjoining room and a battered filing cabinet against the wall.
Michael locked the door behind them.
“I've been waiting for someone to come,” he said.
Jason stared at him. “For how long?”
“Twenty-three years.”
No one answered.
Michael walked toward the table and picked up a photograph. It showed three men standing outside a hospital. Daniel was on the left. A younger Michael stood in the center. The third man was Richard Bell.
Eleanor's breath caught.
“Bell.”
Michael nodded.
“Richard Bell.”
Jason took the photograph.
“What were you doing with him?”
“Trying to stop him.”
Michael placed another photograph on the table.
This one showed Daniel holding a newborn child.
Jason looked closer.
The child's face was too small to recognize.
But written on the back was a date.
And beneath the date were two initials.
“M.R.”
Michael shook his head. “That's not my child.”
Jason looked at him.
“Then whose?”
Michael's answer came slowly.
“Your father's.”
The room seemed to contract.
Thomas stood up.
“My grandfather?”
Michael nodded.
“Daniel discovered something at the hospital. Babies were being moved between records. Names changed. Birth certificates disappeared. Families were told one thing while another child was placed somewhere else.”
Eleanor remembered Sophie’s name appearing in Daniel's papers. She remembered the ledger entry marked “protected.” She remembered Margaret Bell disappearing just as the evidence began to surface.
“Who was protecting the children?” she asked.
Michael looked directly at her.
“Sometimes Daniel. Sometimes people inside the hospital. And sometimes people who had no idea they were involved.”
Jason tightened his grip on the photograph.
“What does Bell have to do with it?”
Michael's expression hardened.
“Everything.”
He opened the filing cabinet.
Inside were hospital records, handwritten notes, photographs, and copies of legal documents.
At the very bottom was a black notebook.
Michael placed it on the table.
“Daniel gave me this the night before he disappeared.”
Jason opened it.
The first pages contained dates and initials.
Then came a list of names.
Some were crossed out.
Others were circled.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Richard Bell.
Another appeared beside it.
Dr. Vance.
And beneath them was a third name.
Margaret Bell.
Eleanor looked at Michael.
“Margaret was involved?”
“Not in the way you think.”
Before anyone could ask another question, a sound came from the hallway.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Michael immediately closed the notebook.
“Someone followed you.”
Jason stood.
“Who?”
Michael moved toward the window and looked down.
A black sedan was parked across the street.
“Bell,” he whispered.
Eleanor's phone vibrated.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
LEAVE THE BUILDING.
A second message arrived.
YOU FOUND MICHAEL. NOW FORGET HIM.
Thomas read the screen.
Michael stared at it.
Then he whispered, “It's beginning again.”
Jason closed the notebook and placed it inside his jacket.
“No,” he said. “It ends this time.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: They left through the rear stairwell.
My Brother Accused Me Beside Our Father’s Coffin, but the Lawyer Arrived Carrying a Key Dad Had Hidden for Years
Part 9 of 15
