Chapter 7: The Father Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
“Emily? Sweetheart, can you hear me?””
The voice coming through the speaker was older than the one on the cassette, roughened by years of strain, but there was something unmistakable about it.
Emily gripped the edge of the table.
For sixteen years, she'd imagined what her father might sound like. Sometimes she pictured a deep voice like the fathers on television. Sometimes she imagined he sounded like her mother's old voicemail recordings. Most nights, she imagined him saying her name and explaining why he had left.
Now he was saying it.
And she couldn't answer.
Jace reached for the phone, but Emily pulled it closer.
“Who are you?””
A ragged breath came through the speaker.
“I'm Michael. I'm your father.””
“Prove it.””
Silence.
Then the man spoke again.
“When you were three, you had a stuffed rabbit with one blue button eye. You called him Captain because you wanted to sail across the ocean. Your mother used to put him in a little chair at the dinner table, and you insisted he needed his own plate.””
Emily's vision blurred.
She had forgotten the rabbit.
But she remembered Captain sitting beside her mother's sewing machine, one ear permanently bent.
“How do you know that?”” she whispered.
“Because I was there.””
“Then why weren't you there when I turned five? Or ten? Or twelve, when my mother died?””
The question tore out of her before she could stop it.
The man on the phone began to cry.
“I tried to come back.””
“When?””
“Several times. I couldn't get close without putting you in danger.””
Emily slammed her palm against the table.
“You don't get to tell me you were protecting me! You don't get to disappear for twelve years and then call me sweetheart like nothing happened!””
Nobody moved.
Even Marcus, who had been pacing near the window, stopped.
On the other end of the call, Michael said nothing for a long time.
Then he answered quietly.
“You're right.””
Emily hadn't expected that.
“I have no excuse that will give you back your childhood,” he continued.
“I can't give you back the years I missed. I can't change the fact that your mother raised you alone. But I never stopped looking for a way to make sure you were safe.””
“Then why did you let me believe you didn't want me?””
“Because I was a coward.””
The honesty hurt more than another excuse would have.
Emily sat down.
“Where are you?””
“Somewhere I can talk without being overheard.””
“That's not an answer.””
“I know.””
“Are you alive? Are you actually alive?””
“Yes.””
She covered her mouth.
For years, she'd wondered whether her father was dead. Sometimes she feared he'd died alone in a ditch. Other times, she hoped he'd built a happy life somewhere else and simply forgotten her.
She had never imagined he was alive and listening from a distance while she grew up without him.
“Why did Jace's father tell everyone you were dead?”” she asked.
Michael exhaled shakily.
“Daniel believed I was dead. He received a report saying my vehicle had been found after a fire. The remains couldn't be identified, but the authorities declared me dead based on the evidence available at the time.””
Jace stepped forward.
“My father never told me there was uncertainty.””
“Because he didn't know,” Michael replied.
“I sent him one message after the fire. I told him I was alive, but I couldn't tell him where I was. The message never reached him.””
Tom's face had gone pale.
“What fire?”” he demanded.
Michael's voice tightened.
“The warehouse outside Millbrook. The night Robert Kane took me.””
Emily looked at the handwritten note.
He was there when they took me.
“You wrote this note,” she said.
“Yes.””
“Who took you?””
“Robert Kane and two men who worked for his father. They wanted the original financial records. I had copies of the trucking company's books, including payments made to people who were supposed to investigate the accident.””
“And they killed you?””
“No. They wanted everyone to believe they had.””
Jace leaned toward the phone.
“Where have you been all these years?””
“Moving. Changing names. Staying away from anyone who could lead Kane to Emily.””
Jace's voice hardened.
“You let my father spend his final years believing you'd been killed.””
“I know.””
“You let Emily's mother die thinking she'd never see you again.””
“I know.””
“You let this girl grow up alone!””
Michael's response was barely audible.
“I know.””
Jace turned away, breathing hard.
Emily had never seen him angry before. Not like this.
She understood why.
Jace's father had kept a promise to Rachel. He had spent years trying to protect Michael's daughter, believing Michael was gone. Now the man was alive, and every sacrifice seemed to have been built around a lie.
Emily wiped her cheeks.
“Dad?””
The word slipped out before she could think about it.
The room went completely silent.
Michael made a broken sound on the other end.
“Yes, sweetheart?””
Emily stared at the floor.
“I'm not ready to forgive you.””
“I understand.””
“I don't even know if I want to see you.””
“I understand that too.””
“But I need the truth. All of it. No more secrets.””
“You have my word.””
She took a shaky breath.
“Then tell me where you are.””
Before Michael could answer, another voice interrupted.
“That's enough, Michael.””
It was a younger man.
Emily recognized the name immediately when Michael whispered it.
“Robert?””
A sharp crash sounded through the speaker.
Then the call went dead.
Jace was moving before the screen went dark.
“Marcus, get everyone here. Tom, call Helen. Denise, save the call records.””
Emily stood so quickly her chair fell backward.
“What happened?””
“Someone found him,” Jace said.
“Then we have to help him!””
“We don't know where he is.””
“He said Robert was there!””
“And that's why we're not running blindly into a trap.””
Emily grabbed her bag.
“You can't tell me to sit here while my father might be hurt!””
Jace caught her arm gently.
“I'm not telling you to sit here. I'm telling you that if we want to find him, we have to think.””
She stared at his hand until he released her.
For a moment, she hated him for being right.
Then Tom returned from the office, holding a piece of paper.
“Michael left something with Helen's receptionist years ago,” he said.
“A message to be delivered if anyone ever contacted the club claiming he was alive.””
“What does it say?”” Emily asked.
Tom unfolded the paper.
Three words had been written in block capitals.
*THE OLD LIGHTHOUSE.*
Jace stared at the message.
“That doesn't make sense. There hasn't been a working lighthouse around here for decades.””
Tom looked toward the window.
“There's one on the coast. Daniel took us there when we were young. Michael knew the place.””
Emily grabbed her jacket.
“Then that's where we're going.””
Jace shook his head.
“Not you.””
She looked at him incredulously.
“Excuse me?””
“You're sixteen. If Robert Kane is involved, this could be dangerous.””
“My father is out there, and I'm not going to hide in a clubhouse while everyone else decides what I'm allowed to know.””
“Emily—”
“You told me I wouldn't face him alone. You promised.””
Jace fell silent.
She could see the conflict in his face. He wanted to protect her. She wanted to believe him.
Finally, he nodded.
“You stay with me. You do exactly what I say if anything goes wrong. No running off. No trying to be a hero.””
“Agreed.””
Tom reached for his coat.
“I'll come too.””
Marcus shook his head.
“You're not climbing around a lighthouse with that leg.””
Tom gave him a hard look.
“I knew Michael before any of you. I'm coming.””
Jace didn't argue.
Within twenty minutes, several motorcycles and two cars were on the road toward the coast.
Emily sat behind Jace, holding tightly to the straps of her bag.
She had spent her entire life wishing her father would come home.
Now she was racing toward him.
But as the highway unrolled beneath them, one thought kept repeating in her mind.
If Robert Kane had found Michael after all these years, he hadn't called Emily by accident.
Someone had wanted her to discover the truth.
And someone else was desperate to stop her.
The lighthouse appeared shortly after sunset, a white tower standing above a rocky stretch of coastline.
Waves crashed against the cliffs below. Wind tore at Emily's jacket as Jace parked near the abandoned keeper's cottage.
Tom climbed out of Marcus's car and pointed toward the tower.
“Daniel brought Michael here the night he decided to disappear.””
Emily looked up at the dark windows.
“Is he inside?””
Jace studied the ground.
Fresh tire marks cut through the gravel.
Then he spotted something near the cottage door.
A small object lay half-buried in the sand.
Emily picked it up.
A silver key chain shaped like a rabbit.
Her fingers trembled.
She remembered Captain's bent ear.
Her father had kept the matching key chain from the little toy they'd bought together when she was three.
On the back, someone had engraved two words.
*WAIT INSIDE.*
Emily looked at Jace.
“Dad was here.””
Before he could answer, a light flickered in the lighthouse tower.
Once.
Twice.
Then a voice came through the darkness.
“Emily Carter!””
A man stood at the top of the stairs, silhouetted against the fading light.
But it wasn't Michael.
May you like
It was Robert Kane.
And he was holding a photograph of Emily's mother.
