Chapter 6 - The Children in the Bag
The duffel bag did not contain random identities.
It contained people.
Families.
Fugitives.
Children.
Each file was a decision someone had made to disappear from a legal life.
Some were victims escaping genuine abuse.
Others were parents fleeing custody orders.
Several were adults running from fraud charges.
David and Brenda had not cared about the difference.
They cared whether clients paid.
Federal agents identified twelve packages as completed identity conversions.
Three involved children currently listed as missing.
One was a seven-year-old girl from Pennsylvania.
Another was a thirteen-year-old boy from New Jersey.
The third case was unclear because the original missing report had been withdrawn after a parent claimed the child returned.
“Meaning someone may have bribed or manipulated the reporting parent,” Price said.
The investigation widened.
Tyler learned only part of this from the news.
His face appeared on television even though stations blurred current images.
REPORTS: CONNECTICUT IDENTITY OPERATION LINKED TO MISSING CHILD CASE.
He watched from the therapeutic foster home.
His foster parents, Carla and Jim Nguyen, were experienced with emergency placements.
They did not pretend to be family.
Tyler appreciated that.
“Can I turn it off?” Carla asked.
“No.”
A reporter showed an old photograph of Lucas Mercer at age four.
Tyler stared.
“That kid doesn’t look like me.”
Carla sat beside him.
“He was you.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
He looked at her.
“You think I’m being stupid.”
“No.”
“What do you think?”
“I think six years is a long time when you’re ten.”
That answer made sense.
At the federal building, Brenda was shown photographs of the other missing children.
She recognized two.
“Did you meet them?”
“One.”
“Which?”
“The girl.”
“Where?”
“Our house.”
Brooks stared.
“You brought another abducted child into the house with Lucas?”
“Her mother needed documents.”
“Did Lucas see her?”
“No.”
“Why help?”
Brenda became irritated.
“I told you. It was business.”
Agent Price leaned forward.
“You built false identities for parents violating custody orders.”
“Some were escaping abuse.”
“Did you verify that?”
“We weren’t social workers.”
“No. You were criminals.”
Brenda rolled her eyes.
Then Price placed David’s original voice message to Sarah on the table.
Sarah had finally given investigators the file she had hidden for six years.
David’s voice came through.
“Two hundred thousand. You wire it and you stop pushing the theft case for thirty days. If I see police near anyone connected to me, you never see Lucas again.”
Sarah’s younger voice answered.
“Let me talk to him.”
“No.”
“I need to know he’s alive.”
A child cried faintly in the background.
Sarah made a sound that was almost animal.
“David, please.”
“Two hundred thousand.”
The recording ended.
Brenda stared at the table.
“You knew about that?” Brooks asked.
“No.”
“You were with David.”
“He didn’t tell me everything.”
“Did you receive any of the money?”
Brenda hesitated.
Price noticed.
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
Brooks sat back.
“And you still claim you were protecting Lucas.”
Brenda’s face tightened.
“Mark said Sarah was trying to put him in prison and take the boy forever.”
“He was extorting her using her son.”
“I know that now.”
“When did you know?”
Brenda said nothing.
That afternoon Sarah met Tyler.
He was furious.
“You paid Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To try to get you back.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“So you gave him money to run.”
Sarah flinched.
“I was desperate.”
“You lied to the police.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He told me if I told them, he would move you.”
“He moved me anyway.”
“I know.”
Tyler stood.
“So maybe everybody lies.”
Sarah looked at him.
“Yes.”
He expected denial.
She gave none.
“I lied because I was terrified. It was wrong. It made the search harder.”
“You could’ve stopped him.”
“I don’t know.”
“You were the adult.”
The same accusation he had made about Brenda.
Sarah swallowed.
“You’re right.”
Tyler’s anger faltered.
Adults were harder to hate when they admitted failure.
He looked away.
“Dad said you didn’t want me.”
Sarah took a breath.
“I wanted you enough to make bad decisions.”
“That doesn’t make them good.”
“No.”
Tyler sat again.
“What did he do with the money?”
“Police are tracing it.”
“I want to know.”
Sarah nodded.
“So do I.”
The money trail ended at a Delaware company called Second Start Solutions.
Its beneficial owner was David Mercer.
Second Start had funded the equipment used in the identity operation.
Sarah’s ransom payment had helped finance the system that kept Lucas hidden.
When Brooks told her, Sarah left the room and vomited.
The money she paid to bring her son home had helped make him disappear.
That night Agent Price called with another discovery.
The red ledger contained an address beside Frank Delaney’s name.
Delaney was a former passport acceptance agent in Maryland.
Federal agents reached his house before dawn.
He tried to burn a box of records in his backyard.
They stopped him.
Inside the box were passport applications.
Dozens.
One carried Lucas’s photograph from six years earlier.
His first false identity.
Tyler Michael Warren.
Brooks stared at it.
David had chosen the first name Tyler.
Not randomly.
The application included an emergency-contact field.
Brenda Shaw.
Dated three months after Lucas disappeared.
There was no longer any question about when Brenda became involved.
But Delaney gave them something even worse.
He said David had not chosen Lucas’s new name.
Brenda had.
“Why Tyler?” Brooks asked.
May you like
Delaney shrugged.
“She said it was what she would’ve named her own son.”
