By the time the first boats line up for Light the Harbor, I’ve already stolen the boots.
“Borrowed,” I correct myself under my breath, standing in Claire’s tiny staff room, one hand on the back of a folding chair for balance. The boots are lined up under the pegboard of uniforms: plain black leather, low heel, a little scuffed at the toes. Functional. Nothing like the delicate stilettos Evelyn approved for me.
I slide my feet into them and wiggle my toes. They’re half a size too big. That’s fine. Better than snapping an ankle on the docks.
Claire glances at the door, then back at me. “You’re really sure about this?”
“I’m going to the docks to watch the parade,” I say, keeping my voice light in case anyone walks past. “I’ll be back before the last firework. Evelyn loves a dramatic finale.”
Claire’s mouth twists into something that isn’t quite a smile. “Stay in the shadows. The cameras hate shadows.”
I zip my coat, tuck my dress inside it, and nod. “Are there any blind spots I should know about?”
She steps closer and traces a line on the air with her finger. “Service corridor to the side door, then the hedge by the garage. Gate camera covers the driveway, but it’s pointed higher than they think. If you walk close to the stone wall, you’re fine.” Her eyes meet mine. “Don’t look up at it. People spot motion that way.”
My heart thumps hard enough to nudge my ribs. “Got it.”
Claire squeezes my arm once—quick, fierce—then lets go. “Text me when you’re back in your room. I’ll set an extra place on the tray in case you need to pretend you were in the kitchen.”
“Thank you.” The words feel small for what she’s risking.
The hallway outside smells like roast beef and rosemary, like money deliberately pretending to be humble. The Mercer crest is etched in frosted glass panels along the wall, that abstract wave curling and re-curling down the corridor, repeating in brass on every door handle. The house watches me with its own brand of coastal theology: we own the tide, so we own you.
I tuck my phone deeper into my pocket, fingers grazing the warmth of it, and follow Claire’s invisible map.
Service corridor. Side door. Hedge.
The side door groans softly when I ease it shut, cold air knifing in around the frame. Outside, the wind smells of salt and chimney smoke from the houses dotting the ridge, and faintly, faintly, the sterile tang of hospital disinfectant riding the air down from the hill. Lights from the cliffside mansions glitter across the water below, threaded through the bare branches like more Christmas decorations. Harbor Glen showing off for itself.
I keep my head down and hug the stone wall. The gravel crunch under the borrowed boots sounds obscene in the quiet, so I adjust my stride, rolling my feet to soften it. At the gate, the security camera sits like an unblinking eye on a metal stem, its red indicator light glowing. I don’t look at it. I count four steps past the post, exactly where Claire told me, then slip through the narrow break in the hedge to the dark shoulder of the back road.
Cars carrying donors and latecomers stream toward the town center, headlights slicing through the night. No one slows for the pedestrians; they know anyone worth stopping for is on a yacht. I keep to the ditch while I walk, letting the brambles scratch my coat, breathing in cold air until my lungs sting and my heartbeat matches the rhythm of my steps.
Harbor Glen’s peninsula narrows ahead, funneling everyone toward the harbor like cattle to a gate. I can already see the glow of the boat parade rising over the rooftops, hear the muffled pop of test fireworks. This whole town is a stage, and tonight the Mercers wrote the script.
I’m the only one using the back road to improvise.
At the edge of town, the manicured center erupts in twinkle lights and banners, the Mercer wave crest subtly embossed on each one. People in wool coats and sequined hats crowd the sidewalks, clutching paper cups of mulled wine and hot chocolate. Kids weave around their legs with glow sticks, their laughter high and bright over the low thrum of generators running the light rigs.
I merge into the moving mass, head down. A few people glance at me, recognition flickering and then sharpening when they place me as Daniel’s wife, the woman who stood beside Evelyn on stage. I fix a tired smile in place and keep walking.
“Mrs. Mercer!” someone calls behind me.
I lift a hand in a vague wave without turning. Needing air gives me permission to be rude.
The docks stretch out ahead, wooden fingers reaching into the dark water. The main pier is broad and brightly lit, set up with a VIP viewing area where heaters glow and catered trays of tiny pastries glitter under silver domes. The Mercer yacht floats at the center of it all—a sleek, multi-level monument to inherited money, the crest shining on its hull. Everyone knows which boat belongs to who. Tonight’s social census is written in wakes and stern lights.
Riley told me, Walk down like you just need air. So I head for the opposite direction, toward the narrower side pier that juts into a patch of deeper dark.
The planks creak under my feet, damp with spray. The smell of salt intensifies out here, layered with gasoline and tarred rope and the faint, sweet burn of woodsmoke from bonfires on the beach. I tuck my chin deeper into my scarf, fingers curled around my phone in my pocket, and follow the line of pilings toward the end.
A figure leans against the second-to-last piling on the left, just beyond the reach of the last working dock light. Hood up. Hands shoved deep in pockets. One foot braced on the timber, like she’s halfway between waiting and walking away.
My heart hammers against my sternum so hard it hurts.
“Riley?” My voice comes out softer than I expect, snatched by the wind and pushed sideways.
The figure straightens. A woman’s outline, compact and wary, turns toward me. “Depends who’s asking.”
I swallow. “The person whose life you turned into a PDF.”
She snorts, quiet and sharp. “Good line.” She takes a step closer, but not too close. The hood shadows her face, but I catch pale skin, dark eyes, hair pulled back in a low knot. “Passphrase?”
“Harbor Glen peninsula woodsmoke ninety-three,” I say, my mouth suddenly dry enough to crack. “And I deleted it.”
“Good.” She tips her head, assessing me. “You look taller in my notes.”
“You gave me bullet points,” I answer. “They don’t list posture.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. The wind tugs at the hem of her jacket, revealing jeans, scuffed boots, no visible jewelry. Nothing for anyone to grab. The posture of someone who expects to run.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” she says. “Security guys love to smoke at the far end of the pier when the bosses think they’re patrolling.”
I glance over my shoulder. From here, the security presence looks like silhouettes at the brighter dock—black coats, earpieces glinting, faces turned toward donors and cameras. Still, paranoia licks at the back of my neck. “Thank you for picking a place where I can die wet and freezing, then.”
“You were the one who said docks.” She shrugs. “Water has fewer cameras.”
Another firework cracks open above the harbor, a spray of white sparks reflecting off the water. For a second, both our faces light up, and I see her clearly: late twenties, maybe early thirties, tired eyes that have seen too many files and not enough sleep. There’s a faint scar along her jaw, a thin line that disappears under her collar.
“You got my message,” she says. “About 14B.”
My fingers tighten in my pockets. “I got all of them.”
“And you still came.” She nods, like she’s ticking off a box on an internal list. “Okay.”
I step closer, careful not to crowd her. The wood beneath us groans and settles. Ripples slap at the pilings, throwing up little flecks of cold spray that prick my ankles. “You said you didn’t start by investigating me.”
“I didn’t.” She shifts her weight, scanning the dock, then the shore, always moving. “You were a name on a staff contact sheet. Your mom’s name was in a completely different file. Patterns overlapped. I wondered why.”
“Patterns like…?”
Riley exhales, the breath steaming between us. “Like infants registered twice. Birth certificates reissued from different counties. Death certificates for babies who never had charts in the first place. All clustered around the same hospital.” She jerks her chin toward the hill, where the Mercer Foundation Wing glows through the mist like a polished tooth. “Your in-laws’ pride and joy.”
“You call them ‘paper orphans,’” I say, remembering the phrase from her email.
“Yeah.” Her mouth flattens. “Kids who exist on one set of documents and not another. Legal ghosts. The foundation adopts them out ‘quietly’ to donors or friends or people who know how to stay grateful. Or they vanish into foster care with wrong names and wrong birthdays.”
The cold finds its way through my coat, threading fingers between my ribs. “How many?”
She hesitates, then opens the crossbody bag at her hip. “Enough.”
Paper rustles. She pulls out a slim tablet in a battered case and an old-fashioned manila folder held together with an elastic band. “I’m not showing you everything. Not yet. Trust is a two-way street, and I’m only standing in the middle.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding. “Show me what you’re willing to lose if someone grabs us right now.”
Her eyes flick to mine, acknowledging the risk out loud.
She tucks the tablet under one arm and opens the folder so it’s mostly facing her, letting me see the right-hand side. The paper smells faintly of toner and dust, a familiar scent that drags me back to copy rooms and case files. I lean in, careful not to let the wind snatch a page.
On top is a photocopy of a birth log: columns of names and times, cramped handwriting, headers in a font I recognize from Mrs. Donnelly’s half-burned file. The Mercer Hospital letterhead sits at the top, crest crisp and smug.
“These are shift logs from maternity,” Riley says. “Late eighties through early 2000s. I pulled them through a back-channel FOIA before the hospital ‘updated’ their archives.”
“Updated,” I repeat.
“Deleted,” she corrects.
She flips a page. Different year, same layout. Some names are underlined in red ink; others circled. Beside them, a sticky note clings to the margin: 02D – adoptive parents donor list / 09F – death cert no matching chart.
Beneath that are photocopies of death certificates: tiny boxes ticked, cause listed as respiratory failure, prematurity, complications. The kind of words that don’t raise suspicion when you’re grieving.
“These kids?” Riley taps the certificates with one gloved finger. “No NICU stays. No treatment notes. Some of their mothers kept getting postpartum appointment reminders for months after their ‘funerals.’ When they showed up, nurses were confused. No record their babies ever existed in the system.”
“But on paper—”
“On paper, the hospital did everything. On paper, the foundation swooped in with grief counseling and support groups.” Her jaw works. “Love and harm, same hands. Story of this place.”
A gust of wind sends the top page flapping. Riley slaps a palm down to secure it, knuckles whitening.
“Why the Mercers?” I ask. “Why this hospital?”
“Because they own the hill and the story,” she says. “They bankroll legislators. They fund judges’ pet charities. They sponsor the boat parade and the scholarship fund and the shiny donor wall in the lobby. Everybody in Harbor Glen owes them something. That makes it really easy to misplace a birth certificate or smooth out a timeline.”
I think of Evelyn at the podium, her voice warm and low as she talked about “at-risk children” and “second chances.” The applause, the standing room, the way donors leaned forward to catch every word, hungry for their own reflection in her praise.
“Do any of those kids know?” I ask. “The ones you’ve tracked down. Do they know their lives were rearranged?”
Riley’s eyes shutter for a second, like a door closing on something raw. “Some do. Some don’t. Some can’t hear it yet.” She slides the folder half an inch out of my view, naming the boundary. “This isn’t a movie where I show up with a file and everybody cries and forgives each other by the second commercial break. There are restraining orders. There are breakdowns. There are people who would rather cling to a lie than share their kid with the truth.”
My hand tightens in my pocket until my nails bite my palm. “My mother said she almost signed adoption papers for me,” I say quietly. “She swore she didn’t follow through. Your files say no reversal was ever recorded.”
“I read the transcript from our call,” Riley says, just as quietly. “She sounded scared.”
The word lands between us like a dropped stone. I see my mother’s hands again, reddened from endless hand-washing at the hospital, stroking my hair when I had the flu, tucking me under thin blankets in our tiny apartment. I also see the space where she never hung a baby photo, the way she shut down whenever I asked.
“I don’t want her to be a villain in this,” I say.
“Then maybe she isn’t.” Riley studies my face. “Maybe the villain is the institution that handed her a pen when she was exhausted and alone and promised her it was mercy.”
Another firework blooms above us—red and gold—and the harbor briefly looks like it’s on fire. My eyes sting. From the cold, I tell myself.
“And you?” I ask. “What’s your stake in this, beyond righteous indignation and an exceptional ability to break into archives?”
She huffs out a breath that might be a bitter laugh. “I’m one of the paper orphans. Not from Mercer, from another hospital that copied their playbook. I grew up with two birthdays and half a name. Every time I tried to pull records, something didn’t match. So I started looking for other people like me. Guess where the trail led.”
The hospital on the hill glows down at us, a benevolent spaceship waiting for the faithful.
“You think the Mercers stole you too?” I ask.
“I think their friends did,” she says. “And I think they knew.” She shrugs one shoulder. “I’m not here to make them my family. I’m here to make sure they don’t keep doing this to other kids and call it charity.”
The wind cuts through my coat again, stealing the heat from my skin. “You’ve been at this a long time.”
“Long enough that I might finally be near the root instead of chasing branches.” She slides the folder back into her bag with practiced speed and powers off the tablet. “That’s where you come in.”
“Because I live on the root,” I say.
“Because you live on the cliff above the law, yeah.” Her gaze sharpens. “You have access nobody else does. You can see things I can’t. Conversations. Rooms. Files they don’t think they need to encrypt because they think the walls are enough.”
I think of Evelyn’s locked office, the trust document, the surveillance files I haven’t found yet. “And in exchange?” I ask. “What do I get besides insomnia and a front-row seat to my life dissolving on paper?”
For the first time, Riley’s expression softens into something like sympathy. “You get a shot at answers. Real ones. Not the PR line. Not your husband’s half-memories or your mother’s guilt edits.” She pauses. “And you get a say in how this ends. Right now, you’re just a piece on Evelyn’s board.”
A wave slaps the pier hard enough to send a shudder up through the boards. Water sprays our ankles. I flinch; Riley barely moves.
“If we do this,” I say, “we do it carefully. I’m already on her radar. She ‘accidentally’ almost killed me on a back road. She’s watching my browser history. She has enough lawyers on retainer to file a restraining order against gravity if it annoys her.”
“Then we use her arrogance,” Riley says. “She thinks she knows how you think. We let her keep that.”
“What does that look like?” My voice drops, instinctively quieter as a couple wanders down the main pier, laughter carried on the wind.
“You keep playing the good daughter-in-law. You smile, you host, you let her believe you’re folding.” Riley’s tone is clinical, like she’s laying out a treatment plan. “Meanwhile, you log everything you can. Names of donors she meets in private. Times she disappears into her office. Any mention of adoption programs, ‘special cases,’ grief funds. Photos of anything you can’t walk out with.”
“And you?”
“I keep pulling from the outside.” She ticks items off on her fingers. “State vital records. Old grant applications. Foster placement logs. Anything that shows the same kid twice under different names, or a kid restored to parents on paper but not in real life.” She glances back toward town. “I also keep you off every official version of this until we understand your role in 14B. You don’t want to walk into court and have them tell you you’re not you.”
My stomach lurches. “That’s a thing that could happen?”
“If your birth record is the patch over someone else’s hole?” she says. “Yeah. That’s a thing.”
The world tilts a degree to the left. I grab the nearest piling, the rough wood scraping my palm. “Great bedtime story.”
“You wanted plain English,” she reminds me.
She watches me steady myself, then takes a small step closer, close enough that I can see the faint freckles across her nose, the worry line between her brows. “Look. We don’t have to solve your identity tonight. We just need to agree we’re not on opposite sides.”
“You did build a file on me,” I say. “That’s an interesting way to start a friendship.”
“Part of me thought you might already be bought,” she admits. “Marrying into the house on the cliff, saying all the right things about legacy and philanthropy. I had to know whether you were another Mercer project or a flight risk.”
“And what am I now?”
“An unstable element in their ecosystem,” she says. “Which is my favorite kind of ally.”
The word ally hangs in the air between us, fragile and real.
Another firework explodes overhead, showering blue sparks over the harbor. People on the main pier cheer. A whistle blows to signal the start of the main procession, and the Mercer yacht horns in response, a deep note of command.
I check the time on my phone. “I should get back before someone counts heads and realizes the future of the family isn’t on deck.”
“Yeah.” Riley slings the bag strap crosswise over her chest, securing it. “Don’t take the same route up you took down. Vary your habits. That kind of thing.”
“You sound like you live in a thriller.”
“I live in a world where powerful people don’t like their paperwork questioned,” she says. “You do now, too.”
I chew on that for a second, tasting salt on the air and the faint metallic tang of my own adrenaline. “How do we communicate?”
“Same encrypted channel.” She nods at my pocket. “I’ll send you a new passphrase every couple of days. If I ever message you from a regular number, assume I’ve been compromised and set your phone on fire.”
“Practical.”
“I’m fun at parties,” she deadpans. Then her gaze sharpens toward the shore. “Someone’s headed this way.”
I follow her line of sight. A lone figure—too bulky for a teenage couple, too purposeful in their stride—has left the bright cluster of donors and started along the outer edge of the dock.
“Security?” I ask.
“Or a fisherman who hates joy.” Riley’s shoulders tighten. “Either way, we’re done.”
“When will I see you again?” The question slips out before I can decide whether I’m ready for the answer.
“When you have something worth meeting over.” She steps back, melting deeper into the shadow of the piling. “Until then, be boring. Be loyal. Let her underestimate you.”
I nod, throat tight. “Riley—”
“Yeah?”
“If I’m connected to 14B,” I say, forcing the words past the knot in my chest, “and we open that up… there’s no version where I get to keep my life the way it is, is there?”
Her expression flickers, softer again for a heartbeat. “Your life already isn’t what you thought,” she says. “This just decides whether you get to choose the next part or let Evelyn write it for you.”
The approaching footsteps grow louder on the boards. Riley pulls up her hood, turning her face away.
“Go first,” she murmurs. “I’ll peel off at the other end. We were never here together.”
I push away from the piling, my hand leaving a faint damp print on the wood, and walk back up the dock toward the lights. My boots thud a steady rhythm, every step a decision I can’t undo. As I pass the oncoming figure, I keep my gaze fixed on the main pier.
“Evening, ma’am,” a security guard says, tipping his head slightly. His earpiece glints.
I summon a tired smile. “Just needed some air,” I say. “It’s… a lot up there.”
“Of course.” His eyes flick past me toward the dark end of the pier, narrowing for half a second. “Best head back. Mrs. Mercer’s about to make the closing toast.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I lie.
I walk faster once I hit the crowd, letting it swallow me. The air up here smells like spilled wine and caramelized sugar from the dessert carts, the roar of chatter a wall of sound. Above it all, the hospital’s lights burn, steady and unbothered, watching the boats parade by like favored toys.
In my pocket, my phone presses against my palm, a small, hard reminder that I’ve crossed a line I can never un-cross. I glance once more toward the dark end of the pier, but Riley is gone.
Back at the estate, I’ll have to put the boots away, peel myself out of my coat, and climb a staircase that now feels like a loaded weapon.
For the first time, I wonder not whether the Mercers will strike again—but how soon they’ll notice I’ve stopped playing my assigned part.