Chapter 6 - SUBJECT ONE6
The first child in Richard Voss’s files was no longer a child.
Her name was Natalie Brooks.
She was twenty-three years old and living under another name in Vermont.
Police found her because Robert’s notebook contained a sequence of initials Detective Bennett matched against sealed juvenile court records.
Natalie had been three when her mother lost custody following an arrest for possession.
The drugs found in the mother’s car were later suspected to have been planted, although the case was never overturned.
Natalie was placed with her wealthy paternal grandparents.
Meridian Family Solutions had been paid two hundred thousand dollars during the same year.
Subject One.
That was how Richard recorded her.
Subject Two had moved from Texas to Maine after a disputed guardianship.
Subject Three had supposedly died in an accident at age nine.
Subject Four had disappeared from public records entirely at sixteen.
Subject Five lived overseas.
Each story was different.
Each contained the same pattern.
A family conflict.
A transfer of custody.
A mysterious crisis.
And money.
Noah was Subject Fourteen because Richard had apparently continued monitoring families connected to Meridian’s history.
But why Noah?
My father had investigated Meridian.
That explained me.
It did not explain why Noah needed a detailed developmental file.
Three days after Lena surrendered, Detective Bennett called Derek and me into headquarters.
“We found Subject Six.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Do they know Richard?”
“He knows more than that.”
A man entered.
Early thirties.
Tall.
Dark hair.
He looked at Derek.
Then me.
“My name is Adam Pierce.”
He sat.
“I’ve been waiting fifteen years for someone to find Voss.”
Adam had been Subject Six.
His mother had hired Meridian.
That surprised me.
“She hired them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My father was violent.”
Adam spoke without drama.
His father had hospitalized his mother twice.
Meridian promised to help her obtain sole custody.
Instead, Richard used the situation for something else.
“He told my mother the court system couldn’t guarantee safety. He offered new identities.”
“For both of you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she accept?”
“No.”
Then Richard began pressuring her.
When she threatened to expose him, Meridian manufactured evidence suggesting she was mentally unstable.
Adam went into foster care temporarily.
His mother spent years fighting to recover him.
“What was Richard actually doing?” I asked.
Adam leaned forward.
“Building a network.”
“Of children?”
“Of identities.”
Richard had discovered that fractured families provided opportunities.
Children moved between jurisdictions.
Records changed.
Guardianships created legitimate paperwork that could later mask illegitimate transfers.
Some Meridian clients simply wanted custody.
Others wanted something darker.
Fresh legal identities.
Hidden beneficiaries.
Children inserted into inheritance structures.
People removed from them.
My father had stumbled onto payments connecting these processes.
“The list Robert stole identified everyone,” Adam said. “Clients. Judges. attorneys. private investigators. doctors. social workers.”
“That would destroy a lot of people.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Adam gave a humorless smile.
“If I knew, Richard would already have killed me.”
The word hit me.
“Killed.”
Adam nodded.
“You still think Robert died naturally?”
My anger hardened.
“Do you know otherwise?”
“I know Richard once bragged that accountants are easy because everyone believes stress kills them.”
Derek pushed back his chair.
“Where is he?”
Bennett raised a hand.
“We don’t know.”
Adam continued.
“My mother knew Elaine Voss.”
Lena’s mother.
“They planned to expose Meridian together.”
“What happened?”
“Elaine disappeared.”
“And your mother?”
“She died in a house fire.”
The phrase struck me.
When the house is on fire, save the people, not the money.
My father’s clue.
“Was the fire accidental?”
Adam looked at me.
“No.”
I felt the room narrowing around us.
“My father knew about it.”
“Yes.”
“He wrote that phrase because of the fire.”
“Probably.”
“Where was it?”
Adam gave us the town.
North of Brookfield.
The same rural address on the Boardwalk card.
My pulse jumped.
“That property belonged to your mother?”
Adam stared at me.
“How do you know the address?”
We told him about Dad’s clue.
His face changed.
“That wasn’t my mother’s house.”
“Whose?”
“Elaine’s.”
Lena’s supposedly dead mother.
The abandoned farmhouse.
We drove there under police escort.
The structure stood behind overgrown trees.
Fire damage blackened one side even after all these years.
Inside, Bennett’s team searched walls, floorboards, attic spaces.
Nothing.
Then Derek noticed an old Monopoly board in a bedroom closet.
I almost laughed.
Dad.
Of course.
Inside the box, several property spaces had been cut.
One card was missing.
Boardwalk.
I placed Dad’s card in the gap.
It fit.
Underneath the board was a handwritten grid.
Numbers.
Dates.
Initials.
No list.
Just coordinates.
Adam studied them.
“These aren’t GPS coordinates.”
I looked again.
Then remembered something my father taught me.
Accounting ledgers.
Row and column references.
“These are book references.”
“To what book?”
We searched the room.
No books.
Then I saw faint marks on the wall where shelves had once stood.
Someone had removed them.
Derek cursed.
“Richard.”
Maybe.
But Bennett’s forensic technician found dust patterns suggesting the shelves disappeared many years earlier.
We were too late.
Until Adam noticed one coordinate.
MFS-1998-04-17.
“That’s not a book.”
“What?”
“It’s a Meridian case number.”
The old case concerned a family named Carver.
The Carvers had three children.
One disappeared.
A seven-year-old girl named Rachel.
Officially presumed abducted by a noncustodial parent.
Never found.
I looked at Adam.
“What does that have to do with Elaine?”
He shook his head.
Then Detective Bennett received a call.
Her expression hardened.
“What?”
She turned toward me.
“Travis Mercer wants to talk.”
Travis had spent four days in custody.
He had refused interviews beyond requesting an attorney.
Now suddenly he was offering cooperation.
“Why?”
“He says Richard is going to kill him.”
“That sounds like his problem.”
Bennett ignored the comment.
“He claims he knows why Noah is Subject Fourteen.”
Every person in the room became still.
“What does he want?”
“Protection.”
“What does he know?”
Bennett held my gaze.
“He says Noah was never supposed to remain with you past his fifth birthday.”
I felt the floor vanish beneath me.
“What?”
“Travis says Richard had an operation planned.”
“For what?”
May you like
Bennett’s voice was quiet.
“To make Noah disappear.”
