"The Discovery of Love: A Father-Daughter Story"

Chapter 1: Episode 3 - Working with Jack

The arrest didn’t end anything.

It just changed the noise.

For days after Victor Hale was led out of his glass office in handcuffs, the world around Emma shifted into a different kind of chaos: news alerts, legal briefings, academic gossip, reporters calling the university, emails from people who’d once ignored her suddenly asking for comments or collaboration.

Everyone wanted a piece of the story.

Emma wanted quiet.

She killed her notifications, let calls go to voicemail, and buried herself in what she could control: data, timelines, and the lingering question that wouldn’t stop whispering at the back of her mind.

Hale had funded the hit. Apex Dominion had stolen Helios.

But how did they get close enough to steal it?

She stared at the whiteboard above her desk, at the cluster of names and arrows radiating out from her father’s in the center.

Someone inside his circle had opened the door.

The thought made her stomach twist.

Her phone buzzed on the table.

Jack Harper flashed across the screen.

She still thought of him as Sam sometimes that was how her father had introduced him. Sam Harper. But somewhere between stakeouts, late-night takeout, and shared near-death statistics, she’d learned that “Sam” was his middle name. His friends called him Jack.

Tonight, he was calling as both investigator and friend.

She answered. “Tell me you’ve got something that isn’t going to ruin my night.”

“Depends on how you feel about traitors,” Jack said. His voice was rougher than usual, like he hadn’t slept much. “You home?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming up. This isn’t a phone conversation.”

Ten minutes later, Jack was at her dining table, sweeping her carefully organized piles of notes into new clusters with his habitual disregard for aesthetics.

He dropped a stapled packet in front of her. “Start there.”

Emma picked it up. Bank records, printouts from public registries, highlighted lines connecting dates and amounts.

“What am I looking at?” she asked.

“Your father’s colleague,” Jack said. “Dr. Alan Mercer.”

Her jaw tightened. “Mercer? No. He’s an a*s, but he’s loyal. He fought the board for my father more than once.”

“Sure,” Jack said. “And three months before your father died, he formed a private consulting LLC. Two weeks after that, that LLC started receiving ‘advisory fees’ from a shell company that traces back to Solace Dynamics.”

“Solace?” She frowned. The name tugged at a memory. She turned to the wall, scanning the corporate web she’d been growing there. Apex Dominion. Subsidiaries. Shells. Competitors.

Solace Dynamics sat off to one side, circled in blue a smaller but rapidly rising clean-energy firm with a suspiciously accelerated R&D timeline.

“Solace is working on concentrated solar arrays,” she said slowly. “Their white papers look very familiar.”

“Right,” Jack said. “And here’s the fun part. The ‘advisory fees’ to Mercer’s little company spike right after your father’s Helios data hits a breakthrough phase. They drop off after his death.”

Emma’s fingers tightened on the pages. “You think Mercer sold them my father’s research.”

“I think,” Jack said carefully, “that Mercer opened the door. Maybe he thought it was just ‘sharing insights’ or ‘leveraging his expertise.’ People are very good at lying to themselves about what crosses a line.”

“And my father died for it,” Emma said.

Jack didn’t argue.

She stared at the numbers again, willing them to rearrange into something more innocent. Mercer wasn’t her favorite person; he’d never pretended to be. He was blunt, competitive, and had once called her “John’s mini-me” in a tone that made it sound like both compliment and insult.

But he’d been there. At conferences. During late-night experiments. At her father’s funeral, his handshake was awkward but sincere.

“Is this enough?” she asked. “Legally?”

“Not by itself,” Jack said. “But it’s more than coincidence. Combine it with what we know about Solace, your father’s stolen data, and their sudden leap forward?” He tapped the papers. “At the very least, it gives us probable cause to start asking loud questions.”

“Ryan?” she asked.

“I’m looking for him tomorrow,” Jack said. “But before this goes official, I wanted you to see it. You knew your father. You know his people. I’m following numbers; you’re following instincts.”

Her instincts were screaming, but they weren’t saying one clear thing.

They were saying: This hurts. This might be true. This might be worse than you think.

Emma set the papers down, very carefully, as if they might explode.

“What do you need from me?” she asked.

“I need you to think about whether you can sit across from Mercer and not punch him in the face,” Jack said. “Because if we’re going to c***k him, we’re going to need his mouth, not his lawyer.”

Despite everything, a short, humorless laugh escaped her. “I’m not really a punching-people person.”

“You’re not doing a lot of things you’ve done this month,” Jack said. “But here we are.”

The next day, under fluorescent lighting and the faded university crest, Emma sat in a cramped conference room waiting for a man she no longer trusted.

Jack sat opposite her, looking like he’d been born in interrogation rooms. He wore his old leather jacket over a clean shirt, sleeves rolled up, notebook open, pen ready. His calm made her nervous; it usually meant he was about to drop metaphorical bombs.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he reminded her. “I can lead. You just have to be you.”

“And ‘me’ is who exactly?”

“The one who makes people forget how much trouble they’re in because they feel guilty for disappointing you,” Jack said dryly. “John had the same trick.”

Before she could respond, the door opened.

Dr. Alan Mercer stepped in, carrying a folder and an expression that landed somewhere between curiosity and annoyance. Late forties, thinning hair, sharp eyes behind rectangular glasses. He wore his lab coat like armor.

“Emma,” he said, closing the door behind him. “You said this was urgent?”

“Dr. Mercer, thanks for coming,” Jack said, standing just enough to be polite. “Jack Harper. I’ve been working with Emma and Detective Cole on your colleague’s case.”

Mercer’s gaze flicked to Jack, then back to Emma. “I didn’t realize there were… private contractors involved.”

“Turns out people plot murder outside the syllabus,” Jack said. “We do what we can.”

Mercer’s lips thinned. “I have an experiment scheduled for twenty minutes. What’s this about?”

Emma swallowed. Her throat felt dry. “We found something, Dr. Mercer. About my father’s work. And about Solace Dynamics.”

He went very still. It lasted a fraction of a second, but she saw the micro-freeze, the tiny glitch in his composure.

Then he laughed. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes, I read the news. Your arrest made quite a splash. I’m not sure what that has to do with a competitor or with me.”

Jack slid a sheet of paper across the table. Bank statements highlighted: “This is the first transfer from a shell company linked to Solace to an LLC registered in your name, Dr. Mercer. It’s dated three months before Dr. Taylor’s death.”

Mercer’s gaze dropped. His fingers tightened on the folder he’d brought. “Consulting fees,” he said. “Perfectly legal. I’m allowed to consult with other companies on unrelated projects.”

“Unrelated,” Jack repeated. “Right. And these just happened to triple after Dr. Taylor’s breakthrough with Helios. Then he stopped right after his work was stolen, and he was murdered.”

“That’s a grotesque connection to make,” Mercer snapped, color rising in his face. “You’re accusing me of what, exactly? Being paid for my knowledge?”

Emma leaned forward, the chair creaking. “Did you share my father’s data with them?”

Mercer looked at her, and for a moment she saw something raw there: guilt or anger or both.

“You think I wanted any of this?” he said. “You think I knew that?”

Jack cut in, voice still calm. “Dr. Mercer. Before you decide how deep you want this hole to be, you should know where we are. We already have Solace tied to stolen Helios data on their internal servers. We have the payment trail to your consulting firm. And we have Apex on record saying they weren’t the only ones interested in Taylor’s work.”

Mercer’s eyes darted toward the door, like he could outrun paper and ink.

“There’s a version of this story where you were a greedy bastard who sold out a colleague,” Jack went on. “There’s also a version where you were squeezed by people with more power than you, made a bad choice, and didn’t understand how far they’d go. One of those is better for you. Both end with you talking to the police. The only question is how much you help them.”

Silence settled over the room, heavy and thick.

Emma watched Mercer’s face, searching for the man she thought she knew the one who’d debated energy ethics with her father in the hallway, who’d once told her, grudgingly, that her simulation models were “shockingly competent for someone your age.”

Instead, she saw a man cornered by his own decisions.

“They said it was harmless,” Mercer whispered finally.

Emma’s fingers curled into her palms. “Who did?”

Mercer exhaled, shoulders slumping. “Solace. Not officially, of course. Through intermediaries. ‘Consulting firms.’ ‘Advisors.’ They approached me after one of my conference talks. Said they wanted insight into emerging solar tech. Said they couldn’t compete with the big players unless they knew what the universities were doing.”

“You didn’t think that sounded suspicious?” Jack asked.

“I thought it sounded like recognition,” Mercer said bitterly. “John got the grants. John got the attention. John got invited to speak everywhere. I picked up his slack in teaching and administration, and everyone assumed I was content being second chair.”

Emma flinched. Some part of her had always sensed that resentment, but hearing it out loud still stung.

“They offered me more money than I’d ever seen on a single contract,” Mercer continued. “All they wanted at first were summaries. High-level overviews. ‘Where do you think this line of research is going, Dr. Mercer?’ ‘What are your predictions for efficiency thresholds?’ It felt hypothetical.”

“And then?” Jack prompted.

“And then they started asking about Helios,” Mercer said. “Not by name. But they knew John was working on something big. They knew about the array designs, about the theoretical limits. They started sending very specific questions. They wanted performance data.”

“You gave it to them,” Emma said.

Mercer’s jaw clenched. “I told myself it was just a professional exchange. That they’d figure it out anyway. That I was just speeding up the inevitable. I didn’t send everything. I kept back key components. I convinced myself I was still loyal.”

“And when the threats started?” Jack asked quietly.

Mercer dragged a hand over his face. He suddenly looked older. “That’s when I realized how wrong I’d been. One of the ‘advisors’ changed their tone. They stopped asking and started demanding. They mentioned John’s late walks home. They mentioned you, Emma. They told me not to interfere if I wanted everyone to stay safe.”

Emma’s skin went cold. “You knew they were threatening him.”

“I suspected,” Mercer said weakly. “I didn’t know they’d go that far. I thought sabo­tage, maybe. A failed grant. An ‘accidental’ lab fire.” He swallowed. “Not that.”

Emma’s chair scraped as she stood up so fast it nearly toppled.

“You thought they might hurt him, and you still took the money,” she said, voice shaking. “You still answered their questions. You still sat at his funeral and told me he was a great man.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him. “Emma, I tried to stop. When I realized how dangerous they were, I cut contact. I told them I was done. That’s when the threats shifted. They stopped using me and went after him directly.”

“So you watched,” she said. “You watched it happen.”

“I was afraid,” Mercer whispered. “Of them. Of losing everything. Of being dragged down with him. I told myself if I kept my head down, it would blow over, that John would.”

“What?” she cut in. “Outrun a bullet?”

Tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall in front of him.

Jack stood too, stepping slightly between them, not to protect Mercer but to anchor Emma.

“Dr. Mercer,” he said, professional distance snapping back into place, “you’re going to write down every name, every burner email, every meeting spot, every detail you remember about your contact with Solace and their intermediaries.”

Mercer nodded slowly, as if in a daze.

“If you cooperate fully,” Jack went on, “Detective Cole can bring that to the DA and argue for some leniency. If you don’t, this all comes out without your side of the story, and you go down as just one more greedy academic who sold out a colleague for a paycheck.”

Mercer’s eyes flicked to Emma. “He would have understood,” he said weakly, desperate. “John pushed boundaries. He took risks. He knew the cost.”

“The difference,” Emma said, her voice low, “is that he risked himself. Not you. Not me. Not the world. Just him.”

She turned away before he could see her cry.

Behind her, Jack slid a legal pad across the table. The scratch of Mercer’s pen starting to move sounded like the smallest possible version of penance.

Hours later, Emma sat in Ryan Cole’s office at the precinct, watching as he flipped through Mercer’s written confession and Jack’s annotated summary.

Ryan’s jaw worked as he read. Finally, he closed the folder and set it down.

“This lines up with some things we’ve been hearing from Hale’s side,” he said. “There’s more than one player in this game. Apex and Solace were on opposite ends of a black market for stolen research. Your father’s work got caught in the middle.”

“So Mercer gets a deal?” Emma asked. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Part of her wanted him locked away forever. Another part, one that sounded suspiciously like her father whispered about the difference between justice and vengeance.

“He gets to breathe and testify,” Ryan said. “He doesn’t get to walk. He was a link in the chain. Not the only one, but one we can’t pretend wasn’t there.”

Emma stared at the folder. “He said he was afraid.”

“Everyone’s afraid of something,” Ryan said. “I’ve seen people do the right thing, shaking so hard they can’t sign their own statement. Being scared doesn’t excuse helping monsters. It just explains how they get recruits.”

She nodded, absorbing that.

Ryan leaned back, studying her. “How are you holding up?”

It was a simple question, but the genuine concern in his voice hit her harder than the case files.

She considered lying. Saying she was fine. That she’d compartmentalize, like she always did.

Instead, she said, “I feel like the ground keeps shifting. Every time I think I’ve found the bottom of this mess, there’s another layer. And I’m so angry I can taste it. At them. At Mercer. At myself for not seeing any of it sooner.”

Ryan nodded slowly. “Good.”

She blinked. “Good?”

“If you weren’t angry, that would worry me,” he said. “Anger means you know something wrong has happened. The trick is not letting it drive the car. You’ve done a decent job of that, all things considered.”

She snorted. “My therapist would disagree, if I had one.”

“Get one,” Ryan said. “You’ve been through a lot of things there should be support groups for, and there aren’t.”

Emma gave him a tired smile. “You volunteering to start one?”

“Sure,” he said dryly. “Step one: we all agree not to investigate our own trauma like it’s a homicide case. Step two: we all fail step one.”

Her laugh came out more genuine this time.

Jack appeared in the doorway, leaning on the frame. “They’re booking Mercer now,” he said. “He’s giving them everything he’s got. Names, meeting spots, access codes. He’s scared enough to sing opera.”

Ryan stood, picking up the folder. “Good. Maybe in all that noise we’ll find something that leads us up the chain. Solace doesn’t get to walk away from this.”

He nodded to Emma. “Go home. Sleep. Eat something that isn’t coffee. That’s an order.”

“Yes, Detective,” she said, mock-solemn.

As she and Jack walked out together, he nudged her shoulder lightly. “You did well in there,” he said. “Holding your ground. Saying what you needed to say.”

“I wanted to throw a chair at him,” she admitted.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “That’s why we use tables. Harder to lift.”

A week later, the lab felt like a grave.

Emma stood in the doorway of her father’s old office, fingers resting on the frame. The university had decided to reassign the space at the end of the semester. “To continue his legacy,” the dean had said.

Which, translated, meant: “We can’t leave prime lab real estate untouched forever.”

She didn’t blame them. Buildings moved on. People did too, or they drowned.

Still, she needed one last look before it became someone else’s territory.

Dust danced in the slanting afternoon light. The air smelled faintly of old coffee and ethanol wipes. The whiteboard still held half-erased equations from last week's lines of symbols that had once made his eyes light up with possibility.

Emma moved around the room slowly, touching the back of his chair, the edge of the desk, the dent in the filing cabinet where he’d once accidentally rammed it with a cart and then pretended it had always been that way.

She reached for one of the desk drawers out of habit, more to close it than anything else, and something slipped from underneath the pen tray a small, folded scrap of paper, yellowed but not as old as some of the other notes.

She frowned, picking it up.

Her heart stumbled when she recognized the handwriting.

Not structured, formal, “this is going in the archive” handwriting.

This was his messy, hurried, “I’ll forget if I don’t write it now” script.

She unfolded it carefully.

Em,

I know you’ll be the one to clean this office out someday, because you’re the only one patient enough not to throw everything in the trash.

If you’re reading this, it means one of two things:

I finally retired, and I am living on a beach somewhere, in which case: stop working and come visit.

Things went sideways.

If it’s the second, I’m sorry. Not for the work I believe in Helios with everything I have, but for the risks I took without telling you all of it. I wanted to carry the danger so you wouldn’t have to. You’re probably furious with me right now. Good. Stay that way long enough to get whoever did this.

But don’t let my war become your whole life. Helios is bigger than me. You are bigger than my mistakes.

Build something good out of this. For yourself. For others. Don’t spend the next twenty years living in my shadow chasing ghosts. You’re allowed to be happy, kiddo.

Proud of you already,

Dad

The words blurred.

Emma sank into his chair, the paper trembling in her hands as tears finally spilled over, hot and unrestrained.

She’d spent months climbing into the wreckage of his life’s work, dragging out bodies and secrets and truths no one wanted to admit. She’d been so focused on avenging him, on proving he hadn’t died for nothing, that she hadn’t left much room for anything else.

Now, in the quiet of his office, with his messy handwriting in her lap, she felt something shift.

Not the grief she suspected that would always be there, like scar tissue around an old wound. But the shape of it changed. Less like a weight pressing her down, more like a presence standing beside her.

She pressed the note into her chest and let herself cry until her head ached, and her throat felt raw.

When the storm finally passed, she wiped her face with the heel of her hand and read the note again. One line stuck like a hook:

You’re allowed to be happy, kiddo.

Allowed.

The word felt strange and almost foreign.

She folded the note and slipped it into her pocket.

On the way out, she paused by the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and added a single line under his last incomplete equation:

EMMA TAYLOR - CONTINUING WORK UNDER HER OWN TERMS

She stepped back, looking at the two names on the board. Father and daughter. Past and future. Neither replaced the other.

Her phone buzzed.

Jack:

Ryan’s got a lead on one of Solace’s intermediaries.

He says, “This is not your case anymore.”

I told him you were absolutely going to show up anyway.

You coming?

A second text, from Ryan, followed almost immediately:

Don’t listen to Jack.

But if you do ignore me, at least wear the vest this time.

Emma smiled through the lingering ache.

She slid her father’s note deeper into her pocket, feeling the crinkle of paper like a small, steady heartbeat.

Then she replied:

On my way.

And I’ll wear the vest.

Most of the time.

As she walked out of the lab, locking the door behind her for the last time in his office, she felt grief and purpose twine together into something new.

Her father’s death had dragged her into a world she never asked for of corporate espionage, corruption, and violence. Working with Jack had shown her she wasn’t helpless in that world. Working with Ryan had shown her that justice, while messy, was worth chasing.

And somewhere in all of it, between late-night strategy sessions, shared gallows humor, and the quiet, steady presence of people who refused to let her carry it alone, something fragile, but real had begun to grow.

Not just vengeance.

Not just duty.

A life that could hold love alongside loss.

Emma stepped into the hallway, the echo of her footsteps following her like a promise.

Her father’s story had ended in this building.

Hers was just getting started.