PART 3 — THE SECRET BEHIND MY REAL NAME
“Who just contacted you?”
Marcus Cole’s voice sounded calm, but his eyes were fixed on my phone.
I slowly slipped it into my pocket.
“Nobody important.”
He didn’t believe me.
“Ethan, if Gary Dawson has contacted you, you need to tell me immediately.”
My blood turned cold.
“How did you know it was Gary?”
Marcus froze.
For the first time since entering that office, the man who seemed to have every answer couldn’t find the right words.
“Because,” he finally said, “Gary has been watching this investigation for years.”
“Then why did you act surprised when I mentioned his name?”
He looked toward the closed office door.
“There’s something you don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Marcus sat down heavily.
“Your disappearance wasn’t the only case connected to Gary Dawson.”
I remembered the text message.
Ask him what happened to the first boy they found.
“What first boy?” I asked.
Marcus’s face changed.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Answer me.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“In 2001, investigators found a young man living under a false identity in Pennsylvania. He had been identified as Daniel Whitmore.”
My heart began pounding.
“What happened to him?”
Marcus looked away.
“Three months after investigators located him, he disappeared again.”
“Disappeared?”
“His apartment was empty. His car was abandoned. Nobody ever heard from him again.”
I stared at him.
“So you’re telling me there was another Daniel Whitmore?”
“We believe someone deliberately created several identities using information from missing children.”
“Why?”
“Money. Access. Protection. We never uncovered the complete operation.”
I stepped away from the desk.
“And you expect me to believe I’m the real Daniel?”
Marcus opened his mouth.
But before he could answer, his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen.
And everything about him changed.
“Excuse me,” he whispered.
He walked toward the window.
I couldn’t hear everything, but I caught three words.
“He’s been identified.”
Then he turned his back.
“No,” he said sharply. “Absolutely not. The mother doesn’t know yet.”
My chest tightened.
The mother.
My real mother.
I had spent fifteen years believing nobody wanted me.
Now someone was deliberately keeping me from the woman who had searched for me.
I quietly pulled out my phone.
Gary’s message was still there.
I typed three words.
Where are you?
His reply arrived almost instantly.
Look outside.
I turned toward the window.
Across the street, a black pickup truck sat beside a closed pharmacy.
The driver’s window lowered.
Even from that distance, I recognized the man behind the wheel.
Gary Dawson.
Fifteen years older.
Gray hair.
The same hard expression.
He lifted one hand.
Then pointed toward the parking garage behind the government building.
Another message appeared.
Five minutes. Come alone.
I looked at Marcus.
He was still arguing into his phone.
“You promised me this would stay confidential!”
I made my decision.
Quietly, I walked toward the hallway.
Nobody stopped me.
Two minutes later, I was standing behind the building, watching Gary climb out of his truck.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
He looked at my face.
Then at the birthmark beneath my ear.
“You look more like him every year,” he whispered.
“Like who?”
Gary swallowed.
“Your father.”
I felt something twist inside my chest.
“Which father, Gary? The one who supposedly died in 1997? Or the one whose name you stole?”
He closed his eyes.
“So they told you.”
“They told me enough.”
“No,” he said. “They told you what they wanted you to believe.”
I stepped closer.
“Were you involved in kidnapping me?”
Gary didn’t deny it.
Instead, he reached into his jacket.
I immediately backed away.
“Relax,” he said.
He pulled out a small envelope.
Inside was an old photograph.
A little boy standing beside a man in military uniform.
The boy was me.
The man wasn’t Richard Miller.
And he wasn’t Gary.
“Who is that?”
Gary’s voice trembled.
“Your real father.”
I stared at the photograph.
“He’s alive?”
Gary looked toward the street.
“He was alive the last time I saw him.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
My mouth fell open.
“Three weeks?”
Gary nodded.
“He’s been trying to find you.”
I couldn’t speak.
Then Gary said something that made my stomach drop.
“Ethan, your father didn’t abandon you. Your mother didn’t abandon you either.”
“Then why was I raised by strangers?”
Gary looked directly into my eyes.
“Because somebody tried to kill your entire family.”
The parking garage suddenly felt smaller.
“What?”
“Your father was investigating a network that sold stolen identities, forged death certificates, and moved children across state lines. He discovered names that powerful people wanted buried.”
“And you?”
“I was assigned to help protect his family.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Protect me? You treated me like garbage.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“You threw me out on my eighteenth birthday!”
“I had no choice.”
“You always had a choice!”
My voice echoed through the garage.
Gary looked down.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he whispered, “They found you when you turned eighteen.”
I froze.
“What?”
“The people who arranged your disappearance. They discovered where you were living. They sent me a photograph of you walking home from work.”
My stomach twisted.
Gary continued.
“They gave me forty-eight hours to make you disappear again.”
“So you kicked me out?”
“I wanted you to leave town. I wanted you to hate me enough that you’d never come back.”
I shook my head.
“You could have told me.”
“And put you in danger?”
“You put me through fifteen years of believing I wasn’t worth loving!”
Gary’s eyes filled with tears.
“I know what I did to you, Ethan. I will spend the rest of my life regretting it.”
For the first time in my life, I saw Gary Dawson cry.
But I wasn’t ready to forgive him.
Not even close.
“What about Carol?” I asked.
“Was she involved?”
Gary became very still.
“Carol loved you.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He looked at the photograph in my hand.
“She knew who you were.”
My throat tightened.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“All those years?”
Gary nodded.
I thought about my mother standing silently in the kitchen while he threw me out.
The tears in her eyes.
The way she refused to look at me.
“She could have told me,” I whispered.
Gary didn’t answer.
Then I remembered something else.
“Marcus Cole. Why did you tell me not to trust him?”
Gary stepped closer.
“Because Marcus was one of the men assigned to investigate your kidnapping.”
“That doesn’t make him dangerous.”
“No,” Gary said. “But what happened in 2001 does.”
He handed me another photograph.
It showed Marcus standing outside an apartment building.
Beside him was a young man who looked almost exactly like me.
“The first boy they found,” Gary whispered.
I stared at the picture.
“What happened to him?”
Gary’s voice dropped.
“He discovered who was selling the identities.”
“And?”
“He disappeared the night before he was supposed to testify.”
A cold feeling spread through me.
“Are you saying Marcus killed him?”
“I don’t know. But Marcus was the last person known to have seen him alive.”
Suddenly, footsteps echoed from the garage entrance.
Gary grabbed my arm.
“We need to leave.”
I pulled away.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who I really am.”
Gary looked at me with an expression I had never seen before.
Fear.
“Your real name is Daniel Christopher Whitmore.”
“And my parents?”
“Your mother is Elizabeth Whitmore.”
I held my breath.
“And my father?”
Gary looked toward the entrance again.
“His name is Jonathan Whitmore.”
Then he added quietly, “And he’s been waiting thirty-two years to tell you why they took you.”
Before I could respond, a familiar voice came from behind us.
“Step away from him, Gary.”
I turned.
Marcus Cole stood at the entrance with two men in dark jackets.
Gary immediately moved in front of me.
“Ethan,” he whispered, “don’t let them take you.”
Marcus raised his hands.
“Daniel, listen to me. Whatever Gary told you, there’s something he’s hiding.”
Gary shook his head.
“Don’t listen.”
Marcus reached into his jacket and removed a folded document.
“Ask Gary where he was on September 17, 1994.”
Gary’s face went white.
Marcus continued.
“Ask him why the witness identified him as the man driving the car.”
I slowly turned toward my stepfather.
“Gary?”
He didn’t answer.
“Tell me he’s lying.”
Gary’s eyes filled with tears again.
Then he whispered six words I will never forget.
“I was the one driving.”
Everything inside me went silent.
Before I could react, Marcus spoke again.
“And there’s something else, Daniel.”
He held up another document.
“Your biological father, Jonathan Whitmore, was officially declared dead eleven years ago.”
I looked from Marcus to Gary.
“But Gary said he saw him three weeks ago.”
Marcus nodded grimly.
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered without thinking.
A man’s trembling voice came through the speaker.
“Daniel?”
My heart stopped.
“Who is this?”
A long silence.
Then the man whispered, “It’s Dad.”
I couldn’t move.
“I don’t understand.”
“Listen carefully, son. Don’t trust either of those men.”
I looked at Marcus.
Then Gary.
Both were staring at my phone.
The voice continued.
“Your mother is alive. She’s waiting for you. But if you want to see her, you need to understand one thing.”
“What?”
The man took a shaky breath.
“You weren’t kidnapped to hide you from us, Daniel. You were taken because you saw something the night your little brother was murdered.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“My little brother?”
Gary closed his eyes.
Marcus stepped backward.
And the voice on the phone whispered one final sentence.
“Son, your brother wasn’t the only child who died that night. The police found two bodies. One of them was supposed to be yours.”………
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
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